Anglo-American Dirty War in Iraq

Tuesday, 13 February 2007

This story was published at Truthout.org. Ulster on the Euphrates: The Anglo-American Dirty War in Iraq I. Paint it Black Imagine a city torn by sectarian strife. Competing death squads roam the streets; terrorists stage horrific attacks. Local authority is distrusted and weak; local populations protect the extremists in their midst, out of loyalty or fear. A bristling military occupation exacerbates tensions at every turn, while offering prime targets for bombs and snipers. And behind the scenes, in a shadow world of double-cross and double-bluff, covert units of the occupying power run agents on both sides of the civil war, countenancing -- and sometimes directing -- assassinations, terrorist strikes, torture sessions, and ethnic cleansing. Is this a portrait of Belfast during "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland? Or a picture of Baghdad today? It is both; and in both cases, one of Britain's most secret – and most criminally compromised – military units has plied its trade in the darkness, "turning" and controlling terrorist killers in a dangerous bid to wring actionable intelligence from blood and betrayal. And America's covert soldiers are right there with them, working side-by-side with their British comrades in the aptly named "Task Force Black," the UK's Sunday Telegraph reports. Last week, the right-wing, pro-war paper published an early valentine to the "Joint Support Group," the covert unit whose bland name belies its dramatic role at the center of the Anglo-American "dirty war" in Iraq. In gushing, lavish, uncritical prose that could have been (and perhaps was) scripted by the unit itself, the Telegraph lauded the team of secret warriors as "one of the Coalition's most effective and deadly weapons in the fight against terror," running "dozens of Iraqi double-agents," including "members of terrorist groups." What the story fails to mention is the fact that in its Ulster incarnation, the JSG – then known as the Force Research Unit (FRU) – actively colluded in the murder of at least 15 civilians by Loyalist deaths squads, and an untold number of victims killed, maimed and tortured by the many Irish Republican Army double-agents controlled by the unit. What's more, the man who commanded the FRU during the height of its depredations – Lt. Col. Gordon Kerr – is in Baghdad now, heading the hugger-mugger Special Reconnaissance Regiment (SRR), a large counter-terrorism force made up of unnamed "existing assets" from the glory days in Northern Ireland and elsewhere. This despite the fact that a 10-year, $100 million investigation by Britain's top police officer, Lord Stevens, confirmed in 2003 that the Kerr-led FRU "sanctioned killings" through "institutionalized collusion" with both Protestant and Catholic militias during the 1980s and 1990s. Stevens sent dossiers of evidence against Kerr and 20 other security apparatchiks to the Blair government's Director of Public Prosecutions, in the expectation that the fiery Scotsman and the others would be put on trial. But instead prosecuting Kerr, Blair promoted him: first to a plum assignment as British military attaché in Beijing – effectively the number two man in all of UK military intelligence, as Scotland's Sunday Herald notes – then with the SRR posting to Baghdad, where Kerr and his former FRU mates now apply the "methods developed on the mean streets of Ulster during the Troubles," as the Telegraph breathlessly relates. The Telegraph puff piece is naturally coy about revealing these methods, beyond the fact that, as in Ireland, the JSG uses "a variety of inducements ranging from blackmail to bribes" to turn Iraqi terrorists into Coalition agents. So to get a better idea of the techniques employed by the group in Baghdad, we must return to those "mean streets of Ulster" and the unit's reign of terror and collusion there, which has been thoroughly documented not only by the exhaustive Stevens inquiries, but also in a remarkable series of investigative reports by the Sunday Herald's Neil Mackay, and in extensive stories by the BBC, the Guardian, the Independent, the Times and others. We will also see how the operations of the JSG and "Task Force Black" dovetail with U.S. efforts to apply the lessons of its own dirty wars – such as the "Salvador Option" – to Iraq, as well as long-running Bush Administration initiatives to arm and fund "friendly" militias while infiltrating terrorist groups in order to "provoke them into action." It is indeed a picture painted in black, a glimpse at the dark muck that lies beneath the high-flown rhetoric about freedom and civilization forever issuing from the lips of the war leaders. II. Whacking for the Peelers Gregory Burns had a problem. He was one of Gordon Kerr's FRU informers planted deep inside the IRA, along with two of his friends, Johnny Dignam and Aidan Starrs. But as Mackay noted in a February 2003 story, the already-partnered Burns had acquired a girlfriend on the side, Margaret Perry, 26, a "civilian" Catholic with no paramilitary ties. Forbidden fruit is sweet, of course – but pillow talk is dangerous for an inside man. "Burns didn't keep his mouth shut and [Perry] found out he was working for British intelligence," an FRU officer told Mackay. "He tried to convince her he was a double-agent the IRA had planted in the [British] army – but she didn't buy it." Burns called his FRU handlers and asked to come in from the cold. He'd been compromised, he said, and now he and his friends needed to get out, with new identities, relocation, good jobs – the usual payoff for trusted agents when the jig was up. But Kerr refused: "He said [Burns] should silence Perry," the FRU man told Mackay. Burns, panicking at thought of the IRA's horrific retributions against informers, insisted: he would have to kill the woman if they didn't bring him in, he told Kerr. Again Kerr refused. And so Burns arranged a meeting with his lover, to "talk over" the situation. His friends, Aidan and Johnny, volunteered to drive her there: "On the way, they pulled into a forest, beat her to death and buried her in a shallow grave," Mackay notes. Two years later, when her body was found, the IRA put two and two together – and slowly tortured Burns and his two friends to death, after first extracting copious amounts of information about British intelligence operations in Ireland. 'In Kerr's eyes, Burns just wasn't important enough to resettle," the FRU source told the Sunday Herald. "So we ended up with four unnecessary deaths and the compromising of British army intelligence officers, which ultimately put soldiers' lives at risk. To Kerr, it was always a matter of the ends justifying the means." Then again, Kerr could well afford to sacrifice a few informers here and there to the wrath of the IRA's dreaded "security unit" – because his own prize double agent was the head of that security unit. Codenamed "Stakeknife," Kerr's man presided over, and sometimes administered, the grisly torture-murders of up to 50 men during his tenure in the IRA's upper ranks. The victims included other British double agents who were sacrificed in order to protect Stakeknife's cover, as the Guardian and many other UK papers reported when the agent's work was revealed in 2003. ("Stakeknife" was later identified in the press as Alfredo Scappaticci – an Irishman despite the Italian name, although he continues to deny the charge.) The FRU also "knowingly allowed soldiers, [police] officers and civilians to die at the hands of IRA bombers in order to protect republican double agents," the Sunday Herald's investigations found. As Mackay reports: "FRU sources said around seven police and army personnel died as a result of military intelligence allowing IRA bombs to be placed during Kerr's time in command of the FRU. They estimate that three civilians also died this way, with casualties in the hundreds." But some of the worst excesses came from the FRU's handling of operatives on the other side, in the fiercely pro-British Protestant militia the Ulster Defense Association (UDA). Here, among the Loyalists, Kerr's top double agent was Brian Nelson, who became head of intelligence for the UDA. As John Ware put it in the Guardian: "Kerr regarded Nelson as his jewel in the crown… For the next three years [from 1987], Nelson colluded with murder gangs to shoot IRA suspects. Month after month, armed and masked men crashed into homes. Sometimes they got the wrong address or shot the wrong person." Such as Gerald Slane, a 27-year-old Belfast man shot down in front of his three children. A gun had been found dumped on his property; this, and his Catholicism, was enough to get him assassinated at the order of Kerr's man Nelson. Afterwards, it was found that Slane had no IRA connections. Another "wrong person" killed by the FRU's agents was the Belfast attorney Pat Finucane, who was shot 14 times in front of his wife and children. Finucane was a civil rights activist who had defended both Catholics and Protestants, but was considered an IRA sympathizer by Loyalists – and a thorn in the side by British authorities. He was killed at Nelson's order by a fellow FRU informer in the UDA, Ken Barrett, who was convicted of the murder but freed last year after as part of an amnesty program in the Northern Ireland peace process. Barrett was unapologetic about his FRU "wetwork" on Finucane. "The peelers [authorities] wanted him whacked," he told a BBC documentary team after his release. "We whacked him and that is the end of the story." Kerr gave Nelson packages of intelligence files to help facilitate the assassination of UDA targets, including at least four "civilians" with no IRA ties, the Stevens inquiry found. The FRU also obtained "restriction orders" from other British security and military units in Northern Ireland, whereby they would pull their forces from an area when Kerr's UDA agents were going to make a hit there, allowing the killers to get in and get out without hindrance, investigator Nick Davies reports. Yet the FRU was wary of sharing its own intelligence with other security services – which was the ostensible reason for running the double-agents in the first place. Instead, Kerr engaged in fierce turf wars with other agencies, while "stovepiping" much of his intelligence to the top circles of the UK government, including the cabinet-level Intelligence Committee chaired by then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Indeed, when Nelson was finally exposed and brought to trial on five counts of conspiracy to commit murder, Kerr testified in his behalf, noting for the court that Nelson's intelligence "product and his reporting was passed through the intelligence community and at a high level, and from that point of view he has to be considered a very important agent." As one FRU man told Mackay: "Under Kerr's command…the mindset was one of 'the right people would be allowed to live and wrong people should die.'" This is the "mindset" now operating in the heart of the Green Zone in Baghdad, where the JSG is carrying out – we are told in glowing terms – precisely the same mission it had in Ulster. a unit which has allowed its agents to torture, murder and commit acts of terrorism, including actions that killed local civilians and the soldiers and intelligence operatives of their own country. III. The White House Green Light Of course, Kerr and his Baghdad black-op crew are not alone in the double-dealing world of Iraqi counterinsurgency. The Pentagon's ever-expanding secret armies are deeply enmeshed in such efforts as well. As Sy Hersh has reported ("The Coming Wars," New Yorker, Jan. 24, 2005), after his re-election in 2004, George W. Bush signed a series of secret presidential directives that authorized the Pentagon to run virtually unrestricted covert operations, including a reprise of the American-backed, American-trained death squads employed by authoritarian regimes in Central and South America during the Reagan Administration, where so many of the Bush faction cut their teeth – and made their bones. "Do you remember the right-wing execution squads in El Salvador?” a former high-level intelligence official said to Hersh. "We founded them and we financed them. The objective now is to recruit locals in any area we want. And we aren’t going to tell Congress about it." A Pentagon insider added: "We’re going to be riding with the bad boys." Another role model for the expanded dirty war cited by Pentagon sources, said Hersh, was Britain's brutal repression of the Mau Mau in Kenya during the 1950s, when British forces set up concentration camps, created their own terrorist groups to confuse and discredit the insurgency, and killed thousands of innocent civilians in quashing the uprising. Bush's formal greenlighting of the death-squad option built upon an already securely-established base, part of a larger effort to turn the world into a "global free-fire zone" for covert operatives, as one top Pentagon official told Hersh. For example, in November 2002 a Pentagon plan to infiltrate terrorist groups and "stimulate" them into action was uncovered by William Arkin, then writing for the Los Angeles Times. The new unit, the "Proactive, Pre-emptive Operations Group," was described in the Pentagon documents as "a super-Intelligence Support Activity" that brings "together CIA and military covert action, information warfare, intelligence and cover and deception." Later, in August 2004, then deputy Pentagon chief Paul Wolfowitz appeared before Congress to ask for $500 million to arm and train non-governmental "local militias" to serve as U.S. proxies for "counter-insurgency and "counterterrorist" operations in "ungoverned areas" and hot spots around the world, Agence France Presse (and virtually no one else) reported at the time. These hired paramilitaries were to be employed in what Wolfowitz called an "arc of crisis" that just happened to stretch across the oil-bearing lands and strategic pipeline routes of Central Asia, the Middle East, Africa and South America. By then, the Bush Administration had already begun laying the groundwork for an expanded covert war in the hot spot of Iraq. In November 2003, it created a "commando squad" drawn from the sectarian militias of five major Iraqi factions, as the Washington Post reported that year. Armed, funded and trained by the American occupation forces, and supplied with a "state-of-the-art command, control and communications center" from the Pentagon, the new Iraqi commandos were loosed on the then-nascent Iraqi insurgency – despite the very prescient fears of some U.S. officials "that various Sunni or Shiite factions could eventually use the service to secretly undermine their political competitors," as the Post noted. And indeed, in early 2005 – not long after Bush's directives loosed the "Salvador Option" on Iraq – the tide of death-squad activity began its long and bloody rise to the tsunami-like levels we see today. Ironically, the first big spike of mass torture-murders, chiefly in Sunni areas at the time, coincided with "Operation Lightning," a much ballyhooed effort by American and Iraqi forces to "secure" Baghdad. The operation featured a mass influx of extra troops into the capital; dividing the city into manageable sectors, then working through them one by one; imposing hundreds of checkpoints to lock down all insurgent movements; and establishing a 24-hour presence of security and military forces in troubled neighborhoods, the Associated Press reported in May 2005. In other words, it was almost exactly the same plan now being offered as Bush's "New Way Forward," the controversial "surge." But the "Lightning" fizzled in a matter of weeks, and the death squads grew even bolder. Brazen daylight raids by "men dressed in uniforms" of Iraqi police or Iraqi commandos or other Iraqi security agencies swept up dozens of victims at a time. For months, U.S. "advisers" to Iraqi security agencies – including veterans of the original "Salvador Option" – insisted that these were Sunni insurgents in stolen threads, although many of the victims were Sunni civilians. Later, the line was changed: the chief culprits were now "rogue elements" of the various sectarian militias that had "infiltrated" Iraq's institutions. But as investigative reporter Max Fuller has pointed out in his detailed examination of information buried in reams of mainstream news stories and public Pentagon documents, the vast majority of atrocities then attributed to "rogue" Shiite and Sunni militias were in fact the work of government-controlled commandos and "special forces," trained by Americans, "advised" by Americans and run largely by former CIA assets. As Fuller puts it: "If there are militias in the Ministry of Interior, you can be sure that they are militias that stand to attention whenever a U.S. colonel enters the room." And perhaps a British lieutenant colonel as well With the Anglo-American coalition so deeply embedded in dirty war – infiltrating terrorist groups, "stimulating" them into action," protecting "crown jewel" double-agents no matter what the cost, "riding with the bad boys," greenlighting the "Salvador Option" – it is simply impossible to determine the genuine origin of almost any particular terrorist outrage or death squad atrocity in Iraq. All of these operations take place in the shadow world, where terrorists are sometimes government operatives and vice versa, and where security agencies and terrorist groups interpenetrate in murky thickets of collusion and duplicity. This moral chaos leaves "a kind of blot/To mark the full-fraught man and best indued/With some suspicion," as Shakespeare's Henry V says. What's more, the "intelligence" churned out by this system is inevitably tainted by the self-interest, mixed motives, fear and criminality of those who provide it. The ineffectiveness of this approach can be seen in the ever-increasing, many-sided civil war that is tearing Iraq apart. If these covert operations really are intended to quell the violence, they clearly have had the opposite effect. If they have some other intention, the pious defenders of civilization – who approve these activities with promotions, green lights and unlimited budgets – aren't telling.

=========================

Decoding Media Lies About The Bomb
at UN Headquarters in Baghdad
Luckily for us, raw video footage always tells the truth!


The media would have us all believe the New York fairy tale that,
“a suicide bomber driving a large blue cement truck drove inside
the UN Building in Baghdad, came to an abrupt halt directly under
the office of Sergio de Mello, where he [the suicide bomber]
detonated the charge, killing 24 people”. Some media networks
misread their common script and said “yellow truck” instead of
“blue truck”, but hey, anyone can mistake one primary color for
another can’t they? Essentially though, this is the
politically-correct media garbage you are all supposed to swallow
about the massive bomb in Baghdad.


Unfortunately for the dream weavers in New York, there is enough raw
video around on this bombing to expose every one of the weavers as
obsequious disinformation whores, faithfully acting on the orders of
their various media proprietors, and completely ignoring the long
term impact this strike may have on ordinary folk like you. How can
we prove this? Let us start in the seconds preceding and immediately
following the blast, which were faithfully recorded on continuous
video at a press conference inside UN Headquarters.


As you can see on the video frame shown above left, a UN official
was addressing a packed media briefing not more than fifty feet away
from Sergio de Mello’s office. The windows of the briefing room
were partly open, because the air conditioning was not working
properly. One split second the official is speaking, them the video
film goes black for two frames, then there is an ear-splitting bang
which sends journalists and others reeling across the briefing room,
as shown in the center and right frames above. Obviously there is
something critical missing from this sequence, but what is it?



The sound of a large Kamaz “cement truck” is missing, that’s
what! Rather artfully invented by FBI Special Agent Thomas Fuentes,
the blue [or yellow] Kamaz truck lies at the very heart of this
outrageous media lie, so if we use hard science to remove the truck,
at the same time we comprehensively discredit Special Agent Fuentes, 

the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and ninety-percent of the
American media.

           
Many years ago I actually drove one of these Eastern European Kamaz
monsters, and people could hear the gears crashing nearly a mile
away. Now imagine how much noise a Kamaz makes when it crashes
through the steel railings outside the UN Headquarters [formerly the
Canal Hotel], before attacking the glass, windows frames and double
brickwork below Sergio de Mello’s office. In reality the noise
would have been so loud it would have stopped the UN media briefer
dead in mid-sentence, but failed to do so.

           
There is not a trace of background sound on the tape in the seconds
leading up to the massive explosion, which in turn proves
conclusively that no giant [or even little] Kamaz truck charged the
UN Headquarters building like a crazed elephant in search of a mate.
Nor is there the slightest trace of camera shake or vibration, which
there certainly would have been if a Kamaz had just charged through
the ground floor below the briefing room.

           
If you don’t believe me, get hold of a copy of the video footage
that the obliging media has left lying around all over, probably
blissfully unaware that it completely destroys their
politically-correct myth. Either that, or the media simply don’t
care. It probably doesn’t matter too much if folk on the Internet
manage to make idiots out of them, just so long as 250-million Homer
Simpsons believe it all on television.


           
The next critical point, and I almost hate to do this after my Bali
and Jakarta investigations, is that surface weapons like an
invisible cement truck, cannot and do not make craters in the
ground. When a weapon detonates the shock wave takes the line of
least resistance direct to atmosphere, or the shortest least dense
route to atmosphere if it happens to be situated a few feet
underground.

Not only that.  Blast expansion is always uniform unless
something gets in the way. If you take a look at the explosion shown
in the center photograph above, the shock wave is radiating outwards
in an arc, with the horizontal shock wave the same length as the
vertical. You will also notice that the shock wave is not
penetrating the earth at all, but taking the atmospheric line of
least resistance, as required by physics 101. Now take a very
careful look at the flanking photographs on the left and right.
Unlike the missing noise and vibration on the briefing room video,
this is more a case of something still being there, when it should
already have vanished.

           
Look carefully at the thick bushes covered with attractive green
leaves, which are situated only 50 feet away from the exact point at
which FBI Special Agent Thomas Fuentes said a “cement truck”
exploded. In fact Special Agent Fuentes claimed a great deal more
than that, but we don’t need to examine the ramblings of a
certifiable FBI cretin at this stage. The reality is that the
surface shock wave from a surface explosion at effective point-blank
range, would have stripped every leaf off every bush in the
vicinity.

           

We know, for example, that the massive blast lofted brick-size
chunks of building rubble 400 yards away from the UN building, and
managed to shatter a number of windows more than 1,000 yards away
from ground zero. Whatever it was, and no matter who planted it,
this explosive device was one hell of a weapon.

Because we know that surface weapons cannot make craters, we also
know that these two photos prove the weapon was detonated
underground, no doubt just a few seconds after someone had phoned
Sergio de Mello on his private office telephone line, to make sure
he was sitting comfortably in the right chair for his own execution.
A quick peek at the telephone logs would be most informative here,
but by now FBI Special Agent Thomas Fuentes has probably fed every
single telephone log book through a shredding machine.

           
Going back to the photos, these are two of only a few that show the
crater for what it really is, a truly huge hole in the ground. 
Both photos were taken from ground level by the fence, and as you
can see quite clearly, both cameras are pointing downwards at about
30 degrees. Despite still being half-full of giant chunks of fallen
masonry, the sheer size and depth of this crater is obvious.

            

The depth of the crater is further highlighted in the photograph on
the right, where you can just see the top of a yellow backhoe down
near the lower edge. Remember that a backhoe arm is about ten or
twelve feet high, meaning that the crater is at least eight feet
deeper than you can see. Allowing for camera distortion, the likely
maximum depth of the crater is probably thirty to thirty-five feet,
or sub-basement level in the old Canal Hotel.

           
It is for this reason, and this reason alone, that I wrote the
report. Because there was no Kamaz truck, we know that the weapon
was not introduced into the UN compound in a vehicle driven by a
“terrorist” of any particular religion or creed. Because we know
how difficult it is for visitors to get beyond the front desk in UN
buildings, we also know that placing a large [or exotic] weapon in
the sub-basement of the old Canal Hotel was essentially an
“inside” job.

           
The list of candidates capable of placing this weapon will be very
short, and the culprit could be caught with relative ease if the
political will to do so existed. Unfortunately it does not, because
every time something goes wrong, war criminals like Bush, Blair and
Howard call in a media “Mister Fixit” to obscure the trail and
try to put there own perverted "spin" on events. These men
are frightened cowards, but they do know very well that you the
public cannot possibly predict the future, if you do not accurately
know the past.

           
The bombing of the UN Headquarters in Baghdad is only one single
example of this inexcusable and criminal behavior, but it is a very
important example that has a direct bearing on what lies ahead in
Iraq. From the hard physical evidence we now know that Sergio de
Mello was deliberately targeted for assassination, an assassination
conducted by remote-detonated sub-surface weapon, in all probability
planted days in advance by the perpetrators. Whoever did this job
was thoroughly professional, and whoever did this job had easy
access to the United Nations building and sub-basement cellars. The
final question always comes down to “who benefits” in cases such
as these, and the Iraqis certainly do not benefit at all. The rest
of it you must work out for yourselves.

Oil Corporations CEO trial for Crimes against Humanity

Oil execs should be charged with crimes against humanity: NASA climatologist
Deirdre Jurand at 12:17 PM ET
The head executives of oil companies should be tried for crimes against humanity and nature for misleading the public about the impact of oil on global warming [EPA materials; JURIST news archive], according to a NASA climatologist who testified before the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming Monday. James Hansen, the long-time director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), told the Guardian that

When you are in that kind of position, as the CEO of one the primary players who have been putting out misinformation even via organisations that affect what gets into school textbooks, then I think that's a crime.

Hansen first testified about global warming before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on June 24, 1988; Monday's testimony marked the 20th anniversary of that address.

Put oil firm chiefs on trial, says leading climate change scientist

· Testimony to US Congress will also criticise lobbyists
· 'Revolutionary' policies needed to tackle crisis

James Hansen, one of the world's leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer.

Hansen will use the symbolically charged 20th anniversary of his groundbreaking speech (pdf) to the US Congress - in which he was among the first to sound the alarm over the reality of global warming - to argue that radical steps need to be taken immediately if the "perfect storm" of irreversible climate change is not to become inevitable.

Speaking before Congress again, he will accuse the chief executive officers of companies such as ExxonMobil and Peabody Energy of being fully aware of the disinformation about climate change they are spreading.

In an interview with the Guardian he said: "When you are in that kind of position, as the CEO of one the primary players who have been putting out misinformation even via organisations that affect what gets into school textbooks, then I think that's a crime."

He is also considering personally targeting members of Congress who have a poor track record on climate change in the coming November elections. He will campaign to have several of them unseated. Hansen's speech to Congress on June 23 1988 is seen as a seminal moment in bringing the threat of global warming to the public's attention. At a time when most scientists were still hesitant to speak out, he said the evidence of the greenhouse gas effect was 99% certain, adding "it is time to stop waffling".

He will tell the House select committee on energy independence and global warming this afternoon that he is now 99% certain that the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has already risen beyond the safe level.

The current concentration is 385 parts per million and is rising by 2ppm a year. Hansen, who heads Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, says 2009 will be a crucial year, with a new US president and talks on how to follow the Kyoto agreement.

He wants to see a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants, coupled with the creation of a huge grid of low-loss electric power lines buried under ground and spread across America, in order to give wind and solar power a chance of competing. "The new US president would have to take the initiative analogous to Kennedy's decision to go to the moon."

His sharpest words are reserved for the special interests he blames for public confusion about the nature of the global warming threat. "The problem is not political will, it's the alligator shoes - the lobbyists. It's the fact that money talks in Washington, and that democracy is not working the way it's intended to work."

A group seeking to increase pressure on international leaders is launching a campaign today called 350.org. It is taking out full-page adverts in papers such as the New York Times and the Swedish Falukuriren calling for the target level of CO2 to be lowered to 350ppm. The advert has been backed by 150 signatories, including Hansen.

RELATED! Bush-Oil-Criminals wanted to invade Iraq FROM DAY ONE. Watch this video for proof:

January 2001, Bush Sought to "Find A Way" to Invade Iraq
Uploaded by BadKitty

7 years US torture - revolutionary human rights

US court backs Guantanamo inmate

The US military base at Guantanamo has housed prisoners since 2002

A US court has for the first time rejected the classification of a prisoner held in Guantanamo Bay as an "enemy combatant".

Huzaifa Parhat, a Chinese Muslim, has been held since he was captured in Afghanistan in 2001.

He is now free to seek immediate release in a US district court.

Earlier this month, a US Supreme Court ruling gave foreign Guantanamo Bay detainees the right to challenge their detention in civilian courts.

Mr Parhat is an ethnic Uighur from Xinjiang province in China, where it meets Central Asia.

The US government argued he was a member of the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement, which it said had links to al-Qaeda.

But Mr Parhat's lawyers said China and not the United States was his enemy.

Uighur activists are seeking autonomy from China, and there are sporadic outbreaks of violence in the province.

Headache for US

The three-judge panel directed the US military to release Mr Parhat, transfer him or promptly set up a new military tribunal to try him.

The court also specified that Mr Parhat could petition a federal judge for his immediate release in light of the Supreme Court's 12 June decision.

Mr Parhat is one of several Uighurs being held at the US military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Their case has become a diplomatic and legal headache for the US, which has tried to find a country willing to accept the Uighurs at the same time as defending its decision to hold them as enemy combatants.

A Day in the Life of a Uighur Detainee at Gitmo's Camp Six

By Jeralyn, Section Terror Detainees Posted on Mon Jun 23, 2008 at 12:53:56 PM EST

On May 20, 2008, Sabin Willit, a corporate lawyer from Boston who represents Huzaifa Parhat, the Uighur detainee whose designation as an "enemy combatant" was reversed Friday by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, testified before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights and Oversight. From his testimony:

One of my clients is Huzaifa Parhat. He’s never been charged with anything. He never will be. In fact, he’s been cleared for release for years. Two weeks ago he began his seventh year at Guantanamo.

....Huzaifa lives in a place called Camp Six. My information, which dates from March, is that all the Uighurs but one are kept there. The men call it the dungeon above the ground. Each lives alone in an isolation cell. There is no natural light or air. There is no way to tell whether it is day or night. Outside the cell is a noisy bedlam of banging doors and the indistinct shouts of desperate men crouching at door cracks. A mad-house. Inside the cell, nothing.

More....

Mr. Chairman, can you remember the last time you were alone -- I mean really alone? Nothing to read, no phone, music, computer, television, radio, activity; no companion, no one to talk to. That’s been Huzaifa’s life for most of the time since December, 2006.

For two hours in twenty four, the MPs shackle and lead Huzaifa to the rec area. This is a two-story chimney, about four meters square. It is his only chance to talk to another human being, or see the sun. But his rec time might be night; it might be after midnight. Weeks go by during which he never sees the sun at all. Mr. Chairman, you try talking to a man who only wants to see the sun. You will never forget the experience.

In the cell he can crouch at the door, and yell through the crack at the bottom. The fellow in the next cell may respond, or he might be curled in the fetal position, staring at the wall. Another Uighur told us of the voices in his head. The voices were getting the better of him. His foot was tapping on the floor. I don’t know what’s happened to him: he doesn’t come out of the cell to see us any more.

A letter from a third was released last December. He wondered, did someone need to commit suicide before anyone notices? A friend has a client who used to be thought of by the command as a model prisoner, well grounded, level headed. Now he has lost hope; he has lost control; he seethes with anger. His mind is wrecked by isolation.

Huzaifa believes he will die in Guantanamo. Last year he asked us to pass a message to his wife that she should remarry.

The Uighurs are not the enemy.

As to Parhat's 's beliefs:

He believes in freedom of worship and denounces state-enforced abortion. He doesn’t care for communism. In China, beliefs like Huzaifa’s are called “intellectual terrorism.” Uighurs are regularly tortured for it. Some are put to death. I can remember when we Americans admired people who stood up for such beliefs in the face of tyranny. Now we offer them -- what do they call it? -- a “single occupancy” cell in Camp Six.

Interrogators advised in 2003 that his capture was a mistake. State has been trying to find a country to which to send him. But our allies read the same shrill rhetoric about Guantanamo that you have read. And the shadow of the communists falls over all the capitals of Europe. Nobody else wants Huzaifa. I used to think of us Americans, Mr. Chairman, as broad-shouldered, able to admit mistakes and put them right, but my government thinks we are a small people, so panicked by real enemies that we lock up imaginary ones. Forever.

When did we become such a small people?

...actually, it's "Sabin Willett". I should know, because he works for the same firm I work for (I docket events for those cases, among other things). I hope these poor guys can get released someday soon.

a wad of cash and citizenship for his trouble. .. er sorry mate...would you like to stay and buy a farm and some pony's? (Uigher's if they tribal like horses. They are a bit like Tartar's, Turk's and Mongols.)

my government has done in recent years that utterly disgust me, this one makes my personal top 10 list.

If I was one of the poor innocent slobs locked up there without a habeaus hearing for 6+ years and I was lucky enough to see the light of day again....I'd be looking for blood.


================

Last month a lawyer for nine detainees who are members of China’s Uighur ethnic minority told a Congressional committee that one of them, Huzaifa Parhat, said that life at Guantánamo was like having already died. The lawyer, P. Sabin Willett, said Mr. Parhat asked the lawyers to pass on a message. He told them to tell his wife to remarry.

===============

United States Court of Appeals
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT
____________
No. 06-1397 September Term 2007
Filed On: June 23, 2008
Huzaifa Parhat,
Petitioner
v.
Robert M. Gates, Secretary of Defense, et al.,
Respondents
BEFORE: Sentelle, Chief Judge, and Garland and Griffith, Circuit Judges
N O T I C E
On Friday, June 20, 2008, the court issued an opinion to the parties in the
above-captioned case. Pursuant to the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, the
court held invalid a decision of a Combatant Status Review Tribunal that
petitioner Huzaifa Parhat is an enemy combatant. The court directed the
government to release or to transfer Parhat, or to expeditiously hold a new
Tribunal consistent with the court's opinion. The court also stated that its
disposition was without prejudice to Parhat's right to seek release immediately
through a writ of habeas corpus in the district court, pursuant to the Supreme
Court's decision in Boumediene v. Bush, No. 06-1195, slip op. at 65-66 (U.S.
June 12, 2008). Because the opinion contains classified information and
information that the government had initially submitted for treatment under seal, a
redacted version for public release is in preparation.
Per Curiam
FOR THE COURT:
Mark J. Langer, Clerk
BY: /s/Nancy G. Dunn
Deputy Clerk
Case: 06-1397 Document: 0120630909 Page: 1

US BASES in Iraq - Details

It's just a $5,812,353 contract -- chump change for the Pentagon -- and
not even one of those notorious "no-bid" contracts either. Ninety-eight
bids were solicited by the Army Corps of Engineers and 12 were received
before the contract was awarded this May 28th to Wintara, Inc. of Fort
Washington, Maryland, for "replacement facilities for Forward Operating
Base Speicher, Iraq." According to a Department of Defense press
release, the work on those "facilities" to be replaced at the base near
Saddam Hussein's hometown, Tikrit, is expected to be completed by
January 31, 2009, a mere 11 days after a new president enters the Oval
Office. It is but one modest reminder that, when the next administration
hits Washington, American bases in Iraq, large and small, will still be
undergoing the sort of repair and upgrading that has been ongoing for
years.

In fact, in the last five-plus years, untold billions of taxpayer
dollars have been spent on the construction and upgrading of those
bases. When asked back in the fall of 2003, only months after Baghdad
fell to U.S. troops, Lt. Col. David Holt, the Army engineer then "tasked
with facilities development" in Iraq, proudly indicated that "several
billion dollars" had already been invested in those fast-rising bases.
Even then, he was suitably amazed, commenting that "the numbers are
staggering." Imagine what he might have said, barely two and a half
years later, when the U.S. reportedly had 106 bases, mega to micro, all
across the country.

By now, billions have evidently gone into single massive mega-bases like
the U.S. air base at Balad, about 60 miles north of Baghdad. It's a
"16-square-mile fortress," housing perhaps 40,000 U.S. troops,
contractors, special ops types, and Defense Department employees. As the
Washington Post's Tom Ricks, who visited Balad back in 2006, pointed out
-- in a rare piece on one of our mega-bases -- it's essentially "a small
American town smack in the middle of the most hostile part of Iraq."
Back then, air traffic at the base was already being compared to
Chicago's O'Hare International or London's Heathrow -- and keep in mind
that Balad has been steadily upgraded ever since to support an "air
surge" that, unlike the President's 2007 "surge" of 30,000 ground
troops, has yet to end.

Building Ziggurats

While American reporters seldom think these bases -- the most essential
U.S. facts on the ground in Iraq -- are important to report on, the
military press regularly writes about them with pride. Such pieces offer
a tiny window into just how busily the Pentagon is working to upgrade
and improve what are already state-of-the-art garrisons. Here's just a
taste of what's been going on recently at Balad, one of the largest
bases on foreign soil on the planet, and but one of perhaps five
mega-bases in that country:

Consider, for instance, this description of an air-field upgrade from
official U.S. Air Force news coverage, headlined: "'Dirt Boyz' pave way
for aircraft, Airmen":

"In less than four months, Balad Air Base Dirt Boyz have placed and
finished more than 12,460 feet of concrete and added approximately
90,000 square feet of pavement to the airfield... Without the extra
pavement courtesy of the Dirt Boyz, fewer aircraft would be able to be
positioned and maintained at Balad AB. Having fewer aircraft at the base
would directly affect the Air Force's ability to place surveillance
assets in the air and to drop munitions on targets... The ongoing
flightline projects at Balad AB consist of concrete pad extensions that
will provide occupation surfaces for multiple aircraft of various types."
Or here's a proud description of what Detachment 6 of the 732nd
Expeditionary Civil Engineer Squadron did on its recent tour in Balad:

"'We constructed more than 25,000 square feet of living, dining and
operations buildings from the ground up,' said Staff Sgt. John
Wernegreen... 'This project gave the [U.S.] Army's [3rd Squadron, 2nd
Stryker Cavalry Regiment] and Iraqi army [soldiers] a place to carry out
their mission of controlling the battlespace around the Eastern Diyala
Province.'"
And here's a caption, accompanying an Air Force photo of work at Balad:
"Airmen of the 407th Expeditionary Civil Engineer Squadron pavement and
equipment team repair utility cuts here June 11. The team replaced
approximately 30 cubic meters of concrete over newly installed power
line cables." And another: "Expeditionary Civil Engineer Squadron heavy
equipment operator, contours a new sidewalk here, June 10. Sidewalk
repair is being accomplished throughout the base housing area to
eliminate tripping hazards." (The sidewalks on such bases go with bus
routes, traffic lights, and speeding tickets -- in a country parts of
which the U.S. has helped turn into little more than a giant pothole.)

Or how about this caption for a photo of military men on upgrade duty
working on copper cable as "part of the new tents to trailers project."
It's little wonder that, in another rare piece, NPR's defense
correspondent Guy Raz reported, in October 2007, that Balad was "one
giant construction project, with new roads, sidewalks, and structures
going up... all with an eye toward the next few decades."

Think of this as the greatest American story of these years never told
-- or more accurately, since there have been a few reports on a couple
of these mega-bases -- never shown. After all, what an epic of
construction this has been, as the Pentagon built a series of fortified
American towns, each some 15 to 20 miles around, with many of the
amenities of home, including big name fast-food franchises, PXes, and
the like, in a hostile land in the midst of war and occupation. In terms
of troops, the President may only have put his "surge" strategy into
play in January 2007, but his Pentagon has been "surging" on base
construction since April 2003.

Now, imagine as well that hundreds of thousands of Americans have passed
through these mega-bases, including the enormous al-Asad Air Base
(sardonically nicknamed "Camp Cupcake" for its amenities) in the Western
desert of Iraq, and the ill-named (or never renamed) Camp Victory on the
edge of Baghdad. Troops have surged through these bases, of course.
Private contractors galore. Hired guns. Pentagon officials. Military
commanders. Top administration figures. Visiting Congressional
delegations. Presidential candidates. And, of course, the journalists.

It has been, for instance, a commonplace of these years to see a TV
correspondent reporting on the situation in Iraq, or what the American
military had to say about Iraq, from Baghdad's enormous Camp Victory.
And yet, if you think about it, that camera, photographing ABC's fine
reporter Martha Raddatz or other reporters on similar stop-overs, never
pans across the base itself. You don't even get a glimpse, unless you
have access to homemade G.I. videos or Pentagon-produced propaganda.

Similarly, last year, the President landed at Camp Cupcake for a meeting
with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki with reporters in tow. You
could see shots of him getting off the plane (just as he does
everywhere), goofing around with troops, or shaking hands with the Iraqi
prime minister but, as far as I know, none of the reporters with him
stayed on to give us a view of the base itself.

Imagine if just about no one knew that the pyramids had been built.
Ditto the Great Wall of China. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon. The
Coliseum. The Eiffel Tower. The Statue of Liberty. Or any other
architectural wonder of the world you'd care to mention.

After all, these giant bases, rising from the smashed birthplace of
Western civilization, were not only built on (and sometimes out of bits
of) the ancient ruins of that land, but are functionally modern
ziggurats. They are the cherished monuments of the Bush administration.
Even though its spokespeople have regularly refused to use the word
"permanent" in relation to them -- in fact, in relation to any U.S. base
on the planet -- they have been built to long outlast the Bush
administration itself. They were, in fact, clearly meant to be key
garrisons of a Pax Americana in the Middle East for generations to come.
And, not surprisingly, they reek of permanency. They are the unavoidable
essence -- unless, like most Americans, you don't know they're there --
of Bush administration planning in Iraq. Without them, no discussion of
Iraq policy in this country really makes sense.

And that, of course, is what makes their missing-in-action quality on
the American landscape so striking. Yes, a couple of good American
reporters have written pieces about one or two of them, but most
Americans, as we know, get their news from television and -- though no
one can watch all the news that flows, 24/7, into American living rooms,
it's a reasonable bet that a staggering percentage of Americans have
never had the opportunity to see the remarkable structures their tax
dollars have paid for, and continue to pay for, in occupied Iraq.

This is the sort of thing you might expect of Bush-style offshore
prisons, or gulags, or concentration camps. And yet Americans have
regularly and repeatedly seen what Guantanamo looks like. They have seen
something of what Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq looks like. But not the
bases. Perhaps one explanation lies in this: On rare occasions when
Americans are asked by pollsters whether they want "permanent bases" in
Iraq, significant majorities answer in the negative. You can only assume
that, as on many other subjects, the Bush administration preferred to
fly under the radar screen on this one -- and the media generally
concurred.

And let's remember one more base, though it's never called that: the
massive imperial embassy, perhaps the biggest on the planet, being
built, for nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars, on a nearly
Vatican-sized 104-acre plot of land inside the Green Zone in Baghdad. It
will be home to 1,000 "diplomats." It will cost an estimated $1.2
billion a year just to operate. With its own electricity and water
systems, its anti-missile defenses, recreation, "retail and shopping"
areas, and "blast-resistant" work spaces, it is essentially a fortified
citadel, a base inside the fortified American heart of the Iraq capital.
Like the mega-bases, it emits an aura of American, not Iraqi,
"sovereignty." It, too, is being built "for the ages."

A Land Grab, American-style

The issue of the mega-bases in Iraq first surfaced barely days after
Baghdad had fallen. It was on April 20, 2003, to be exact, and on the
front-page of the New York Times in a piece headlined, "Pentagon Expects
Long-Term Access to Key Iraq Bases." Thom Shanker and Eric Schmitt
wrote: "American military officials, in interviews this week, spoke of
maintaining perhaps four bases in Iraq that could be used in the
future," including what became Camp Victory. The story, and the very
idea of "permanent" bases, was promptly denied by Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld -- then essentially disappeared from the news for years.
(To this day, again as far as I know, the New York Times has never
written another significant front-page story on the subject.)

Now, however, the bases are, suddenly and startlingly, in the news (and,
of course, being written about and discussed on TV as if they had long
been part of everyday media analysis). This week, in fact, they hit the
front page of the Washington Post, due to protests by Iraqi leaders
close to the Bush administration. They were angered by, and leaking like
mad about, American strong-arm tactics in negotiations for a long-term
Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) that would officially embed
American-controlled bases in Iraq for the long-term, potentially tie the
hands of a future American president on Iraq policy, and represent a
sovereignty grab of the first order. (A typical comment from a
pro-Maliki Iraqi politician in that Post piece: "The Americans are
making demands that would lead to the colonization of Iraq...")

The growing Iraqi protests -- in the streets, in parliament, and among
the negotiators -- certainly helped spark coverage in this country. A
persistent and intrepid British reporter, Patrick Cockburn of The
Independent, helpfully broke the story of Bush administration demands
days before it became significant news here.

But most of the credit should really go to the Bush administration
itself, which, despite the long-term flow of events in Iraq, still
wanted it all. Greed, coupled with desperation, seems to have done the
trick. In all the years of the occupation, the officials of this
administration have had a tin ear for the post-colonial era they
inhabit. It's never penetrated their consciousness that the greatest
story of the twentieth century was the way previously subjected and
colonized peoples had gained (or regained) their sovereignty.

The administration indicated this, back in 2003, with its very dream of
garrisoning a major, potentially hostile, intensely nationalistic Arab
nation in the heart of the oil lands of the planet. That the building of
enormous American bases and the basing of troops in relatively peaceful
Saudi Arabia after the First Gulf War led to disaster -- think: Osama
bin Laden -- mattered not a whit to top administration officials.

It couldn't have been clearer just how little they cared for Iraqi
sovereignty or pride when L. Paul Bremer III, George W. Bush's personal
representative and viceroy in Baghdad, before officially "returning
sovereignty" to the Iraqis in June 2004, signed the infamous (though, in
this country, little noted) Order 17. As the law of the land in Iraq,
among other things, it ensured that all foreigners involved in the
occupation project would be granted "freedom of movement without delay
throughout Iraq," and neither their vessels, nor their vehicles, nor
their aircraft would be "subject to registration, licensing or
inspection by the [Iraqi] Government." Nor in traveling would foreign
diplomats, soldiers, consultants, security guards, or any of their
vehicles, vessels, or planes be subject to "dues, tolls, or charges,
including landing and parking fees," and so on.

When it came to imports, including "controlled substances," there were
to be no customs fees or inspections, taxes, or much of anything else;
nor was there to be the slightest charge for the use of Iraqi
"headquarters, camps, and other premises" occupied, nor for the use of
electricity, water, or other utilities. And all private contractors were
to have total immunity from prosecution anywhere in the country. This
was, of course, freedom as theft. Order 17 would have seemed familiar to
any nineteenth century European colonialist. It granted what used to be
termed "extraterritoriality" to Americans. Think of it as a giant
get-out-of-jail-free card for an occupying nation.

Now, imagine, that, even after years of disaster, even in a state of
discontrol, with unsecured global oil supplies surging toward $140 a
barrel, the Bush administration remained in the same Order 17 frame of
mind. They began their negotiations with the Iraqis accordingly.
Cockburn (and other journalists subsequently) would report that they
were asking for Order 17-style immunity for the U.S. military and all
private contractors in the country, as well as the use of up to 58
bases, even though they evidently "only" had 30 major ones in the
country. (A leading politician of the Badr Organization claimed that
American negotiators were actually pushing for the use of a startling
200 facilities across the country.)

They also evidently insisted on control over Iraqi air space up to
29,000 feet, the right to bring troops in and out of the country without
informing the Iraqis, and the right to "conduct military operations in
Iraq and to detain individuals when necessary for imperative reasons of
security," again without notification to the Iraqis, no less approval of
any sort. They may even have insisted on the freedom to strike other
countries from their Iraqi bases, again without consultation or
approval. In addition, reported Cockburn, they were attempting to force
their Iraqi counterparts to agree to such a deal by threatening to deny
them at least $20 billion in Iraqi oil funds on deposit in the Federal
Reserve Bank of New York.

Gulf News reported as well that, under the American version of the
agreement, "Iraqi security institutions such as Defense, Interior and
National Security ministries, as well as armament contracts, will be
under American supervision for ten years." This was partially confirmed
by the Washington Post's Walter Pincus, who reported on a multi-year
contract just awarded to a private contractor by the Pentagon to supply
"mentors to officials with Iraq's Defense and Interior ministries... [
who] would 'advise, train [and] assist... particular Iraqi officials.'"

Had the Bush administration exhibited the slightest constraint, they
might have constructed a far more cosmetic version of the permanent
garrisoning of Iraq. They might have officially turned the mega-bases
over to the Iraqis and leased them back for next to nothing. They could
have let the stunning facts they had built on the ground speak for
themselves. They could have offered "joint commands" and other
palliative remedies (as they are now evidently considering doing) that
would have made their long-term sovereignty grab look far less
significant -- without necessarily being so. But their ability to
strategize outside the (Bush) box has long been limited.

Think of them as "the me generation" on steroids, going global and
imperial. Or give them credit for consistency. They're mad dreamers who
still can't wake up, even when they find themselves in a roomful of
smelling salts.

Instead, with their secret SOFA negotiations, they've attempted to fly
under the radar screens of both the U.S. Congress and the Iraqi people.
They wanted to embed permanent bases and a long-term policy of
occupation in Iraq in perpetuity without letting the matter rise to the
level of a treaty. (Hence, no advice and consent from the U.S. Senate.)

Not surprisingly, this episode, too, is threatening to end in debacle.
The Iraqi leadership is in virtual revolt. Across the political
spectrum, as Tony Karon of the Rootless Cosmopolitan blog has written,
the negotiations have forced upon the Iraqis "a kind of snap survey or
straw poll... on the long-term U.S. presence, and goals for Iraq" from
which the Americans are likely to emerge the losers.

The idea of timetables for American departure is again being floated in
Iraq. According to Reuters, "A majority of the Iraqi parliament has
written to Congress rejecting a long-term security deal with Washington
if it is not linked to a requirement that U.S. forces leave," and
unnamed American officials are now beginning to mutter about no SOFA
deal being achieved before the Bush administration leaves office.

The administration's man in Baghdad, Prime Minister Maliki, has declared
the initial U.S. proposal at a "dead end" and has even begun threatening
to ask American forces to leave when their UN mandate expires at year's
end. (Though much of this may be bluff on his part, what choice does he
have? Given Iraqi attitudes toward being garrisoned forever by the U.S.
military, no Iraqi leader could remain in a position of even passing
power and agree to such terms. It would be like stamping and sealing
your own execution order.)

The Sadrists are in the streets protesting the American presence and
their leader has just called for a "new militia offensive" against U.S.
forces. The pro-Iranian, but American-backed, Badrists are outraged.
("Is there sovereignty for Iraq -- or isn't there? If it is left to [the
Bush administration], they would ask for immunity even for the American
dogs.") The Iranians are vehemently voting no. Opinion in the region,
whether Shiite or Sunni, seems to be following suit. The U.S. Congress
is up in arms, demanding more information and possibly heading for
hearings on the SOFA agreement and the bases. Presidential candidate
Barack Obama has insisted that any deal be submitted to Congress, the
very thing the Bush administration has organized for more than a year to
avoid.

And miracle of all miracles, the mainstream media is finally writing
about the bases as if they mattered. Someday, before this is over, all
of us may actually see what was built in our names with our dollars.
That will be a shock, especially when you consider what the Bush
administration has proved incapable of building, or rebuilding, in New
Orleans and elsewhere in this country.

USA owes reparations to Iraq -- OBAMA MIGHT PAY

given that

• 9/11 was done by the US military (a illusionist high-tech bloodbath)
•  and this fact can not EVER be told
• for the purpose of strategic gain (money for weapons/oil/geo-politics)...
  
• no matter if it is a quagmire, US military thrives anyway.

... any withdrawal from Afghanistan and Iraq is OUT OF THE QUESTION. Barak Obama will not be able to survive this. I bet the Cheney-JCS-criminals are planning a OPERATION GLADIO-style bio-terror-atrocity that will terrorize everyone into submission.

On the other hand, Obama could arrest everyone and force Israel to relent.

Meantime, in the real world.. CHOMSKY offers us valuable insights:

Brazen imperialism in the Middle East
Sat, 14 Jun 2008 22:05:51


Press TV: How do you characterize this so-called security treaty between Washington and Baghdad?

Chomsky: The security arrangement was in fact declared last November. There was a declaration from the White House, presumably a Bush-Maliki declaration, but had nothing to do with the Congress or Parliament or any other official institution. It called for an indefinite long-term US military presence in Iraq and that could include the huge air bases that are now being built around Iraq. The US is building what's called an embassy but it's unlike any embassy in the world. Its essentially a city inside a city. These are all declared intentions to retain a permanent dominant presence in Iraq.

The declaration also, a little to my surprise, had a rather brazen statement about exploiting the resources of Iraq. It said that the economy of Iraq, which means its oil resources, must be open to foreign investment, privileging American investors. That's pretty brazen. Now that's brazen imperialism saying we invaded you so that we can control your country; and so that our corporations can have privileged access to your resources. It was not at all clear that any Iraqi was ever going to accept this and in the steps that had followed as there was an attempt to sort of formulate it, more precisely, there have been predictably increasing objections. Different formulations and so on but without going through the details leading to prime minister al-Maliki's recent comment that you quoted.



Press TV: Do you think Nouri al-Maliki will eventually succumb? I mean previous occupants of that position, well, they have come and gone. Haven't they?

Chomsky: I mean look the country is under military occupation. It is not a free country, so there is a limit on how much any individual can do when your country is under military occupation.

The Wall Street Journal, which is not exactly a radical newspaper, states that the Maliki government survives only on the basis of US arms. That's an exaggeration but not an inconceivable perception, so he might not survive if he doesn't accept it.

Press TV: Professor Chomsky, of course, one country that is being blamed by Washington is Iran and what's on a lot of minds in the Middle East is this drumbeat of war as it were. Do you think the United States wants military action and will there be military action against Iran? And how do you characterize the IAEA's nuclear negotiation process?

Chomsky: It is interesting, the way everything is blamed on Iran. And that's a rather striking reflection of how deep-seated the imperial mentality is in the West, so for example when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is asked by the press: is there a solution to the problem in Iraq, and she says yes a simple solution - foreign forces should be withdrawn and foreign arms should be withdrawn, referring of course to Iran -, people don't laugh and collapse in ridicule.

I mean, of course, there are foreign forces and foreign arms in Iraq, but not Iranian. They are American, but those are not considered foreign forces.

In the Western conception, US and, indeed, much of the West, if our forces are anywhere, they are indigenous. They are not foreign because fundamentally there is a tacit assumption that we own the world, so our forces are not foreign - they are indigenous.

We talk about Iranian interference: it's like talking about Allied interference in Nazi occupied Vichy France; it doesn't make any sense, but the mentality accepts it.

Now as far as the IAEA is concerned, the United States handed over to the international agency a collection of documents recently and the agency says they have not received adequate explanation about them from Iran. OK that's where things now stand.

I have my own opinion about what ought to be done and, in fact, it happens to be the same as the opinion of the overwhelming majority of Americans and also the overwhelming majority of Iranians, according to the polls in the two countries, namely that the right solution to this problem is to declare a nuclear weapons free zone in the entire region which would include Iran, Israel and American forces deployed there and so on. About three quarter of Americans are in favor of that, and I think that's the right idea!

Press TV: Professor Chomsky, that's obviously not going to happen...



Chomsky: Who says? It won't happen on the assumption that the United States is a completely undemocratic country in which public opinion can't influence policy. I don't think that's a necessary assumption.

Press TV: We're hearing things from Israel. There were remarks about some 'Iran Command' being set up. Of course, we had Seymour Hersh in the United States saying that there was going to be an attack on Iran, obviously...

Chomsky: So will it happen you mean. Nobody knows whether it will happen. I mean it's conceivable. I mean the whole world is aghast at the possibility. One leading British military historian, Corelli Barnett, said it'll mean world war III. It will have very serious consequences, undoubtedly, not to speak of what would happen to Iran, but it's conceivable that they would be willing to take a kind of a wild gamble and just see what happens.

Remember that everything the Bush administration has done, almost without exception, has turned into a catastrophe for the interest that they represent. And it's possible that they might decide to go out in some blaze of glory just to see what happens. Hit the system with a sledgehammer and see what happens. I frankly doubt it. I think that as far as anyone can tell, the US military is opposed and US intelligence seems to be opposed and surely the world is opposed. On whether they will accept those pressures or not, you can't really tell. People like Dick Cheney are unpredictable.

Press TV: Professor Chomsky, if people in your own country are opposed to the Iraq war, Afghanistan seems to be a sort of good war. There was recently a donors' conference in Paris. How do you see the situation in Afghanistan moving on with more money from multinational companies, more so-called donors and yet the security situation seems to be deteriorating.

Chomsky: Well this is a long topic, and I think we ought to talk about it another time, but, very briefly, what matters in this case is the opinion of Afghans. And though we don't have very good evidence about that, we have some. So, for example, this is a recent study, a very interesting study, a Canadian study of Taliban fighters... You know, it seems what they want is to get foreign forces out of the country in which case they can accommodate to the rest.

The general opinion in Afghanistan seems to be somewhat similar. They want accommodation with the Taliban not war and the majority think it's possible. If foreign involvement was reconstruction, that would be accepted undoubtedly, and it should be in my opinion not aid but reparations.



Russia, the United States, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have torn this country to shreds and they owe reparations for what happened, and then maybe the people can accommodate among themselves. That's what diplomacy ought to be pushing for.

www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=60005&sectionid=3510302

Barak Obama Clinton ISRAEL - Operation Gladio

Israeli Taxpayers complicit with zionist war crimes -- James Petras

by Efraín Chury Iribarne / June 13th, 2008

Efraín Chury Iribarne: Good day Petras, how’s it going…

James Petras: It’s a good day here in nature, but it seems to me an unhappy day in relation to the latest declarations of President Chávez.

ECI: That’s the question I was just about to ask you…

JP: Here all the bourgeois press is giving lots of favorable emphasis to the denunciations of the FARC and the demands and speeches that President Chávez is making and I imagine it’s a shock for many people to face the aggressiveness with which he’s pursuing this policy.

ECI: Specifically, if I ask you from here, from the south and the interpretation that can be made via the different channels of information, one would say that the outstanding question in all the papers and media that cannot be ignored, is that Chávez is asking the FARC to give up all its hostages and demobilize in exchange for nothing and that moreover they, the FARC, are the excuse for the imperialist presence in the region. I don’t know if that’s the reading that can actually be made…

JP: It’s pure Stalinism, to say that an insurgent group with 40 years of struggle is playing imperialism’s game is pure idiocy; imperialism functions well enough in Venezuela without need for a guerrilla movement, as you know, this can be understood precisely by the role it played in the 2002 coup and all the politics from that moment, and it is functioning in many parts of the world where there is any kind of warlike government or whatever, and to say that the FARC’s armed struggle is a pretext for imperialism is pure stupidity and I must say it. And another thing, Chávez doesn’t explain how the FARC can hand over their prisoners when it has 500 guerrillas rotting, tortured, malnourished, sick in the dungeons of Uribe’s prisons. I believe that my question is why President Chávez wants to sacrifice the lives of the guerrilla prisoners to take up the flags of Uribe, Sarkozy, etcetera — a total unilateral surrender.

My second question is whether Chávez understands that the last time the FARC guerrillas submitted to the electoral struggle, they were massacred and I want to ask if he is disposed to guarantee the lives of the guerrillas who try to enter electoral political life facing the paramilitaries and armies that continued to kill non-guerrilla union members last week. And third, I want to know if what Chávez is asking is that the guerrillas imitate Central American politics where in El Salvador and Guatemala and others peace accords were signed and armed struggle abandoned and nothing changed, the misery of El Salvador and Guatemala is just as bad as before, so bad that half the country has left for Europe, for North America, for Mexico, whatever. While the peace process satisfies the bourgeoisie, the large majority remains with all its demands and unrewarded sacrifices. What’s worse, the number of dead in Guatemala and El Salvador since the peace accord surpasses the dead from the guerrilla war; in other words, each year there are eight or nine thousand homicides in these countries because the demobilized [armies] can’t find work, many enter into crime and there’s crossfire between the different gangs. I don’t know if Chávez is concerned about the deaths as a product of the misery that arises after the peace accords, but one ought to take these facts into account.

And finally I believe that Chávez’s politics are exactly, exactly the speech I heard from Felipe Perez Roque, Cuba’s foreign minister, four years ago and I want to ask if this analysis and these declarations really come from Chávez’s thinking or if he is repeating the Cuban line that goes back many years, more than a decade. It is against the FARC, in favor of reconciliation and seeks bourgeois allies throughout the continent, including in the last 6 years with Uribe, and it is the ideology of Fidel Castro who says the guerrilla era is over, and he said that 5 years ago. So I don’t know if it’s Fidel or the Cubans influencing Chávez or if he has taken his own initiative, but in either case there’s a big coincidence there. And finally, eliminating the FARC is not going to eliminate imperialism; it will actually have a boomerang effect. Once Colombia consolidates its position, it’s easier for North American military bases to occupy parts of Colombia, and Uribe will be more aggressive against the Venezuelan borders, therefore strategically speaking, to stop an enemy who has both hands free to pressure and attack Venezuela is a disaster. While the FARC carries any weight, Colombia must orient a portion of its troops toward that conflict, but if the FARC didn’t exist it would be much easier to concentrate all forces against Venezuela. Or could it be that Chávez believes that Uribe is going to embrace him because he’s going to attack the FARC, sure, he’ll embrace him with a knife in his right hand. I believe that it is a disaster because it’s going to strengthen the line of the liberal governments and center left in Latin America that has proven its incapacity and I believe that there’s no benefit whatsoever, neither for the people nor for the Venezuelans, and it will even harm Chávez himself very quickly.

ECI: Bush is traveling throughout Europe, touring all of Europe as a farewell and he started with Slovenia and other places that one would imagine impossible for him to visit, what is Bush seeking with this?

JP: Bush is a president who has nothing to say inside the United States; it’s impossible for Bush to appear in any public place with freedom of entry because there is so much anger against his government, which now is very extensive with the economic crisis and the price of gasoline. It’s quite impossible for Bush to appear within the United States; the only place where he can meet with less public opposition is in Europe and what he’s seeking finally are some policies to save the North American economy, [he’s] trying to get some concessions from the petroleum producing countries, shore up support for the lost war in Iraq, threaten Iran, etcetera, but nowhere is it possible to say that he has been effective in getting what he was looking for. The Middle Eastern oil producers, his monarch friends, rejected Bush’s requests, they’ve even blamed Bush himself for the prices, for his aggressive militaristic policies, for overconsumption of oil, for the weakened dollar which has raised prices. The Russians have attacked Washington for its enormous economic imbalances. Europe is the quietest acquaintance; it has nothing to offer Bush to strengthen or help the North American economy. So, these are travels that demonstrate the impotence of the government and the absence of anything to offer as a concession in exchange for concessions from other parts of the world. He doesn’t have anything to offer and leaders are not inclined to continue to make sacrifices for such a militarized economy, so full of speculative crises and corruption, and so on; basically its a trip that has no future whatsoever, it’s senseless.

ECI: There’s a subject that we need you to analyze. It’s called Barack Obama. What will the changes be, what might be the changes in the United States in respect to the influence of Zionism, in respect to the war first of all, and Latin America afterwards?

JP: Okay, here we have various factors; there’s the unification of the right-wing of the Democratic Party around Obama with Hillary Clinton’s support.

On the other hand, there are indications that the disenchantment among various minority sectors that supported Obama, particularly with his very servile speech to the powerful Zionist group in Washington where he said things that not even the North American right-wing has said. [Such as] when he said that Jerusalem should be completely Jewish, under Israel’s control, where he supported the militaristic aggression against Iran. It shows one thing, which is the power the Jewish organizations have over North American presidential politics. All the candidates except those from the left-wing were present: Obama, Hillary, McCain giving the world’s most unimaginably servile vision. Saying the filthiest things against the Palestinians, against Hamas, without even a single mention of the million and a half Palestinians without water, without electricity, without food, malnourished, the complicity of Israeli terrorism, incredible! Not a single critical candidate among them, and all the organizations, the dentists, the great financiers supporting the conference, eight thousand middle class Jews, lower-middle class, rich, millionaires, multi-millionaires, showing their power through standing ovations for the most militaristic declarations. And look, Brecha has never written anything about the power that Zionism has over North American politics. It’s never explained to a Uruguayan audience how all the [U.S.] presidents are on their knees before Jewish power in the United States.

I have many acquaintances who are progressive Jews but they’re impotent; when big things happen there are half a dozen who criticize what’s happening with the auditorium but really they don’t have any (…) that affects policy. And it’s one of the great tragedies that we have a minority that represents less than 2% of North American’s population but has such power in the communications media.

ECI: That’s economic power?

JP: Yes, but it’s not just economic, they’re organized, they’re present in all the communications media, they’re well situated in Congress, they have officials in the presidency, in the Executive branch; it’s not simply a matter of Jewish millionaires but that it’s all configured in important posts in the media, in the Congress, in the Executive branch, in all local governments, towns, dentists, doctors, lawyers, professionals, academics, all united in a crusade, all for Israel. When Israel says “we’re going to attack Iran,” these activists, respectable Jews, are the first to support it. Not all, because there are plenty of Jews who aren’t interested in Israel nor the politics of the communal organizations, but those who are active and present have definitely taken the most bellicose positions. They support a government that tortures and imprisons thousands of Palestinians.

I’m reminded when the Jews speak of the complicity of the Germans, what are they themselves if not complicit with the great and savage crimes of the State of Israel? What difference is there between German complicity and that of the professors and doctors? And the same thing is happening here, exactly the same thing and look how the media don’t question the fact that the presidents in this congress of the association in favor of Israel, are eight thousand delegates representing 120,000 affiliates in the country who are super active.

There’s one thing that one should ask and that is why the North American public doesn’t react against the manipulations of this minority. It’s because the Jews control the communications media and present Obama’s speeches in favor of Jerusalem and Israel as though they were something normal, just another speech. And there’s no commentary when Israel says that it’s going to hurl bombs at Iran. No editorial whatsoever criticizing Israel. Why? Because of Israel’s power, and note, Noam Chomsky, a hero of the Brechistas and the leftists: Silent, during the conference of the Zionist organizations! When the North American candidates submit themselves to the Israel lobby, Chomsky doesn’t say anything critical against the Jewish organizations. He’s also complicit because with his silence he seeks to divert attention from certain North American investments in Israel and tries to blame those when they don’t have any kind of influence over Israel’s foreign policy and no weight at all against the Jewish lobby in Washington. Despite his moralistic position, Chomsky is complicit in the great subject of our time, the war against Iran, the war against Palestine [and] excuses Israel with his silence toward the U.S. Jewish organizations which are the main force supporting Israel.

ECI: Petras, we appreciate this profound analysis that you’ve made of several issues on the table. On behalf of the audience, we embrace you and promise you’ll find us on Monday…

JP: Many thanks and my regards to everyone. I look forward to this day because we need to reflect on our political support for these leaders. And for my part at least I feel a bit disenchanted with President Chávez when this puts me so much in mind of the political accords between supposedly great leftist leaders with right-wing politicians and foreign movements are used as nothing more than pressure in order to improve their diplomatic policy.

I believe that our commitment must always be toward our own movements in our own countries with our own class struggles, instead of looking for great saviors elsewhere.

ECI: Very well, Petras, a big hug as always, best wishes…

JP: A hug, bye.

ECI: Bye bye.

www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/06/a-disenchanted-james-petras/
www.radio36.com.uy/

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Manufactured Reality: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

By Peter Chamberlin

31 May, 2008
Countercurrents.org

In order to force a new reality upon any targeted populace, the masters of the universe follow a simple strategy – they immediately make things twice as bad as they intend to keep them, only to take one step back after a short while, so that the new manufactured reality will be easier to accept. This strategy holds constant from the manipulation of oil prices to the military strategy to rule the world by force.

In the terror war, nuclear terrorism has become the weapon of both first choice and last resort for American war planners. It was more important to create the impression that nuclear war was imminent than it was to convince the world that we intended to use nuclear weapons as our ace in the hole. The world had to be terrorized into believing that our insane cowboy president was about to unleash nuclear war upon the world, so that it could be held over the people's heads. The world had to be shocked and awed by American military supremacy into submitting to Bush's demands.

America took two giant steps forward militarily, intending in the end to take one step back from the precipice of actual global thermonuclear war, to a more limited approach that only called for a limited use of "tactical" nukes. A two-track approach to the war was undertaken; one path leading to immediate global nuclear war and another "democratic" approach, which put-off the use of nuclear weapons until some future action, in order to create unlimited opportunities for subversion where America's full military might could be brought to bear upon more specific targets. (Have they already been used?)

The threat that full-scale nuclear war in the center of the world's primary energy basket was imminent created a global atmosphere of mortal fear and dread, while covert limited wars were simultaneously pursued. This was intended to cow both the American people and the people in the targeted countries into submission to presidential dictates. The threat of general nuclear war was used to intimidate the targeted governments into "playing nice" diplomatically, while America interfered in their national affairs, introducing its revolutionary "democratic" form of politics, which included backing extremist groups.

Fear of US nuclear forces provided cover to American agitation in the Middle East region along the lines of "Operation Gladio," which was used against our own allies in Europe. In both operations, sympathetic right-wing leaders were found who could be bought, to be groomed by the CIA, to cultivate and organize local opposition groups. From these agitated groups more violent radicals were found and hired to stage terrorist ("false flag") attacks upon civilians and the governments, to be blamed upon their local opposition, which were usually actual patriot groups.

The second leg of the neoconservative war doctrine is the spreading of subversion under the cover of implanting democracy by force, and its companion, the spreading of force through democratic means. Divisive political campaigns in targeted nations (including staged attacks by extremists) were engineered, to split the tribal societies into heavily-armed polarized factions waiting for retribution.

We have this apt description of this divisive American strategy from former Pakistani ISI agent, turned human rights activist, Khalid Khawaja:

"Many of us call it a battle between East and West, between the Islamic and Judeo-Christian world, but it is neither of these. It is in fact the ruling regimes that want to dictate their will...

Ninety percent of people accept to be ruled, but there always remain some elements who refuse to succumb. They fight for freedom and resist till their last. However, in this conflict of two minorities - those who impose their will and those who resist it - the majority remains the sole victim. Yet people talk about Islam versus Christianity or Judaism. The basic theme remains the same. There is a group of people who want to impose their will, whether they happen to be Christian or Muslim, and there is a group of people who want to resist, and there is a silent majority which is trampled in between."

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GF22Df04.html

Mr. Khawaja continues to delve into the under-discussed cause of the whole war on terror:

"In Afghanistan's case, a similar game was carried out on a massive scale when Muslim youths from all over the world were brought in by Pakistan and the US [to fight against the Soviets in the 1980s]. They were tools for the empires' proxy war. The name of jihad was used...it is a question of a state imposing its will. The message is clear: if you are against us, we will kill you and your sympathizers. In this state terrorism, there is no exception, be it Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Pakistan, India, the US or Israel. All are the same.

When two elephants fight, it is the grass that gets crushed. When two elephants make love, it is again the grass that gets crushed. Whether states fight with each other or make friendships, it is only the tools who became victims."

The same deception has been practiced in both Iraq and Afghanistan, to prolong both of those wars until the doctrine could be spread beyond them. Both countries had been targeted for regime change, but nonetheless, even after the first regime was replaced, the doctrine of creating surrogate militias to promote democratic revolution was still developed in each one, targeting the new regimes. In each country violent extremist groups, usually identified as "al Qaida related," were put on the American payroll to fight against US troops and US installed governments. The hiring and training of these "militia" mercenary groups falls within the recognized definition of treason, "levying war against [the United States]."

That destabilizing doctrine is now being exported into Iran from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, where beachheads have been established for a planned assault upon the entire neighborhood. These training centers are terrorist camps, plain and simple. These are the American trained terrorists who will carry the limited warfare scenario into Iran under cover of the greater threat of nuclear terrorism. The United States of America is the world's number one supporter and exporter of terrorism; it always has been.

In order to carry out the Israeli-centric PNAC (Project for a New American Century) terror war plan that they have committed to, Bush and Cheney have doggedly undermined America's national interests at home and all over the world. America's national interest has always been based on advancing liberty and human rights to the whole world, but now, under the neocon plan, these are rights that must be earned. Bush was sent unto the world to turn reality upon its head.

On a rotating basis, America and Israel took turns slinging threats of nuclear annihilation and libelous invective at Iran and Syria, hyping the threats to intensify the notion that a nuclear attack was becoming imminent. As Israel and America ramp-up the war-mongering against Iran and Syria, Israel sings out the threats first, then America will provide the chorus and hopefully the highly desired "money shot" afterwards.

As a final machination, to seal America and Israel's position, the neocon doctrine unlocked the prohibition of the offensive use of nuclear weapons, even in civilian areas. It is this new free use of nuclear weapon doctrine that is the icing on the cake for those who are plotting to seize the world under the threat of American nuclear terrorism. Because it is now possible, it is easy to convince us all that our cowboy administration of religious zealots is about to commit an insane act, i.e., unleashing nuclear war to eliminate the possibility of a nuclear war.

Patriotic anti-government voices in this country and in the targeted countries, helped to create a strong public perception that nuclear war was imminent. Antiwar voices of protest like mine sound a warning to alert the people to the crimes being planned that must be heard, but in so doing, we play into the government scheme by helping to hype the threat. It is both necessary and natural that patriots arise to defend their nations in the face of American invasion or aggression. We play a vital role in the planned drama, as it unfolds. We have convinced the world that Bush and Cheney were insane enough to radiate the Middle Eastern oil fields, in order to steal the world's oil. We now may have to convince the world that the crazies themselves are the source of most of the terrorism which we fight.

It is pretty obvious that they really are that insane, but it should be even more obvious that their greedy masters don't want their world destroyed, they only want to control it. Why should they actually nuke Iran, if they can persuade the locals to overthrow the regime for us, causing less collateral damage (it would be difficult to operate the Middle East oil facilities, if they were all radioactive). We have to convince the American people that Bush even though the little dictator is both stupid and insane, the real deciders are neither of those things. It is their wills which will prevail, meaning that there are other less final, less costly ways to takeover the oil reserves and the pipeline routes.

We have to concentrate on stopping the secret war, without being blinded by the glare of nuclear terrorism. Exposure of American sponsorship of world terrorism (some of the very "terrorism" we are fighting) must become our top priority. Legal actions must be taken to stop the illegal support of terrorism upon civilians by our government. Further legal actions must be taken to separate American foreign policy from Israel, in order to bring the terror war to an end.

Israel has been the primary source for most of the "intelligence" that launched the war on Iraq, the Iranian reactors and hypothetical nuclear weapons, as well as the alleged Syrian reactors. America turned Israel's evidence into grounds for waging war, even nuclear war. They are behind the new push to find other Syrian nuclear facilities http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1211872842227&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull as well as the alleged Iranian warhead blueprint. http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1212041430322&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Israel is behind every military move against Iran that is being brought-up in the press. It was the first to suggest taking out Iranian reactors, the first to recommend a naval blockade of Iran and an embargo on air flights between Iran and Syria and Lebanon. American Zionist Congressional leaders gladly took up the torches lit by Israel, to create Israeli security at America's expense. A Congressional resolution is awaiting passage in the Senate, which demands that our government carry-out these acts of war, both the naval blockade and the air embargo, House Resolution 1194
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.+Res.+1194

The American people must rise-up in outrage to the terrorists who rule over us and stop the planned escalation, as a first step to de-escalating the war. It is time for us to take our own two steps forward, to force the aggressors to take one step back and begin to tear-down their manufactured reality.

Contact author: peter.chamberlin@yahoo.com

www.countercurrents.org/chamberlin310508.htm