Filed under: 9/11 Truth, afghanistan, CIA, fake alqaeda, government crimes, hamid karzai, ISI, Military Industrial Complex, mujahideen, nation building, NATO, occupation, Pakistan, scandal, state sponsored terrorism, taliban, terrorist funding, terrorist hoax, terrorist supporting, terrorist training, troops, truth movement, u.s. soldiers, war on terror, whistleblower, wikileaks
US paying Pakistan to kill American troops?
Times of India
July 21, 2010
A treasure trove of US documents implicating Pakistan in its support for terrorism exploded in the public domain on Sunday, sending officials in both countries scurrying to defend a dubious alliance and straining a phony partnership based on a misreading of the ground sentiment and situation.
WikiLeaks, a whistleblower organization that publishes sensitive government leaks from anonymous sources, put a staggering 91,000 documents, mainly ground reports from US military personnel, in public domain on Sunday. Many of the documents exposed Pakistan’s double-faced policy of fuelling terrorism in Afghanistan while claiming to be fighting it as an US ally.
In effect, the chronicles suggested that Washington was blindly paying Pakistan massive amounts of money for access to Afghanistan even as Islamabad uses its spy agency, ISI, to plot the death of American and Nato troops, allied Indian personnel, and undermines US policy. The most devastating leaks showed that Pakistan allows representatives of its spy service, ISI, to meet directly with the Taliban in secret strategy sessions to organize attacks against American soldiers in Afghanistan, and even hatch plots to assassinate Afghan leaders, including President Hamid Karzai.
WikiLeaks worked with three media organizations–The New York Times, Germany’s Der Spiegel and The Guardian–to make sense of the massive cache of documents, while not disclosing how it got hold of it. Stunned Washington experts compared it to the leaking of the Pentagon papers during the Vietnam War. What the cache highlighted most was the continuing Pakistani perfidy, and American credulity in accepting Islamabad as an ally and funnelling billions of dollars in aid even as it helped plot US downfall in the region and killed American soldiers.
“Americans fighting the war in Afghanistan have long harboured strong suspicions that Pakistan’s military spy service has guided the Afghan insurgency with a hidden hand, even as Pakistan receives more than $1 billion a year from Washington for its help combating the militants,” the New York Times said in its assessment of the report. “The records also contain firsthand accounts of American anger at Pakistan’s unwillingness to confront insurgents who launched attacks near Pakistani border posts, moved openly by the truckload across the frontier and retreated to Pakistani territory for safety,” it continued.
“The behind-the-scenes frustrations of soldiers on the ground and glimpses of what appear to be Pakistani skullduggery contrast sharply with the frequently rosy public pronouncements of Islamabad as an ally by American officials looking to sustain a drone campaign over parts of Pakistani territory to strike at Qaida havens,” it added.
That policy of ambivalence and appeasement continued even into the hours after the WikiLeaks expose, as US and Pakistani officials rushed to control the damage. US national security advisor James Jones condemned the “disclosure of classified documents by individuals and organizations”, which, he said, “could put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk, and threaten our national security”, when, in effect, the documents suggest it is Washington’s appeasement of Pakistan which is doing that.
US officials also argued that the documents posted by WikiLeaks covered a period from January 2004 to December 2009 and pre-dated President Barack Obama’s new strategy announced on December 1, 2009, when they suggested there began a turnaround “with a substantial increase in resources for Afghanistan, and increased focus on Al Qaida and Taliban safe-havens in Pakistan, precisely because of the grave situation that had developed over several years”.
“I don’t think anyone who follows this issue will find it surprising that there are concerns about the ISI and safe havens in Pakistan. In fact, we’ve said as much repeatedly and on the record,” one official explained. “The period of time covered in these documents (January 2004-December 2009) is before the President announced his new strategy. Some of the disconcerting things reported are exactly why the President ordered a three-month policy review and a change in strategy.”
But the official also cast aspersions on WikiLeaks and its motive, saying, “It’s worth noting that WikiLeaks is not an objective news outlet but rather an organization that opposes the US policy in Afghanistan.”
Pakistan, as usual, reacted with fury to the disclosures, calling the leaks “malicious and unsubstantiated”. An unnamed official in Islamabad was quoted as saying, “They were from raw intelligence reports that had not been verified and were meant to impugn the reputation of the spy agency.”
A more restrained reaction came from Pakistan’s ambassador to the US Hussain Haqqani (whose book chronicles the Pakistani military’s jihadi connections and outlook). “The documents circulated by WikiLeaks do not reflect the current on-ground realities,” Haqqani said, plying the current Washington-Islamabad line that whatever happened was in the past.
Wikileaks Docs Target Pakistan
Hillary Clinton ADMITS that the US and Pakistan created the Mujahaddin
Wikileaks’ War Logs Highlight Global Intelligence Facade Of ‘War On Terror’
Filed under: 9/11 Truth, Afghanistan, Ahmadinejad, CIA, fake alqaeda, government crimes, Military Industrial Complex, mujahideen, Mullah Omar, nation building, occupation, Pakistan, scandal, State Sponsored Terrorism, Taliban, terrorist funding, terrorist hoax, terrorist supporting, terrorist training, truth movement, War On Terror, Wayne Madsen
CIA and Taliban working together
Are America’s Mercenary Armies Really Drug Cartels?
Congress to probe ‘U.S. funding of Taliban’
War tax proposed to pay for protecting Afghan opium fields, bribing Taliban
Filed under: Afghanistan, bin laden, bush, CIA, Coup, gulf war, Iraq, nation building, north korea, Nuke, occupation, osama, Pakistan, Saddam Hussein, State Sponsored Terrorism, War On Terror, WMD | Tags: Abdul Qadeer Khan, Khan Research Laboratories
Saddam’s Nuke Salesman Was Protected By U.S. Government
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
March 10, 2010
The Washington Post has completely whitewashed new revelations concerning how close Saddam Hussein came to obtaining a nuclear bomb by failing to mention the fact that the provider, Khan Research Laboratories, was shielded from investigation by the U.S. government for decades.
“As troops massed on his border near the start of the Persian Gulf War, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein weighed the purchase of a $150 million nuclear “package” deal that included not only weapons designs but also production plants and foreign experts to supervise the building of a nuclear bomb, according to documents uncovered by a former U.N. weapons inspector,” reports the Post today.
“The offer, made in 1990 by an agent linked to disgraced Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, guaranteed Iraq a weapons-assembly line capable of producing nuclear warheads in as little as three years.”
However, the report completely fails to even mention the fact that Khan Research Laboratories, the source from which Saddam would have procured a nuclear bomb, was protected from investigation by the U.S. government since at least the mid-1970’s, as investigative journalist Greg Palast exposed in a 2001 BBC report.
In 2004, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan’s atom bomb program, admitted sharing nuclear technology via a worldwide smuggling network that included facilities in Malaysia that manufactured key parts for centrifuges.
Khan’s collaborator B.S.A. Tahir ran a front company out of Dubai that shipped centrifuge components to North Korea.
Despite Dutch authorities being deeply suspicious of Khan’s activities as far back as 1975, the CIA prevented them from arresting him on two occasions.
“The man was followed for almost ten years and obviously he was a serious problem. But again I was told that the secret services could handle it more effectively,” former Dutch Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers said. “The Hague did not have the final say in the matter. Washington did.”
Lubbers stated that Khan was allowed to slip in and out of the Netherlands with the blessing of the CIA, eventually allowing him to become the “primary salesman of an extensive international network for the proliferation of nuclear technology and know-how,” according to George W. Bush himself, and sell nuclear secrets that allowed North Korea to build nuclear bombs.
“Lubbers suspects that Washington allowed Khan’s activities because Pakistan was a key ally in the fight against the Soviets,” reports CFP. “At the time, the US government funded and armed mujahideen such as Osama bin Laden. They were trained by Pakistani intelligence to fight Soviet troops in Afghanistan. Anwar Iqbal, Washington correspondent for the Pakistani newspaper Dawn, told ISN Security Watch that Lubbers’ assertions may be correct. “This was part of a long-term foolish strategy. The US knew Pakistan was developing nuclear weapons but couldn’t care less because it was not going to be used against them. It was a deterrent against India and possibly the Soviets.”
In September 2005 it emerged that the Amsterdam court which sentenced Khan to four years imprisonment in 1983 had lost the legal files pertaining to the case. The court’s vice-president, Judge Anita Leeser, accused the CIA of stealing the files. “Something is not right, we just don’t lose things like that,” she told Dutch news show NOVA. “I find it bewildering that people lose files with a political goal, especially if it is on request of the CIA. It is unheard of.”
In 2005, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf acknowledged that Khan had provided centrifuges and their designs to North Korea.
Having armed once branch of the “axis of evil,” it’s no surprise that Khan was also used in an attempt to arm Saddam Hussein with nuclear weapons, opening up another perfect justification for Iraq to subsequently be invaded and occupied by U.S. forces.
Although the 2003 invasion was sold on the lie that Saddam was hiding weapons of mass destruction which proved to be non-existent, it wasn’t for the want of trying, since efforts to arm Saddam with nuclear weapons via the Khan network were a mere continuation of the U.S. government’s program to provide Saddam with chemical and biological weapons, tools used to commit atrocities that were later cited by the U.S. as one of the primary reasons for the attack.
Of course, since the Washington Post is a mouthpiece for the new world order and the Bilderberg Group that owns it, in covering the Khan-Saddam connection writer Joby Warrick knows that his bosses wouldn’t be pleased if he actually gave you more than half the story, which is why his article amounts to nothing more than a misleading whitewash.
Filed under: 9/11, 9/11 Truth, Afghanistan, army, bin laden, Blackwater, CIA, corruption, Coup, drug smuggling, drug trafficking, drugs, fake alqaeda, False Flag, FBI, friendly fire, gangsters, government crimes, Hamid Karzai', heroin, India, inside job, Iran, Iran Contra, jihadists, karzai, McChrystal, mercenaries, Military, Military Industrial Complex, nation building, NATO, obamas war, occupation, Opium, Ordo Ab Chao, osama, Pakistan, pakistan army, private contractors, Robert Gates, scandal, sibel edmonds, Stanley McChrystal, State Sponsored Terrorism, Taliban, terrorist funding, terrorist supporting, terrorist training, Troops, truth movement, u.s. soldiers, USAID, war on drugs, War On Terror | Tags: BAGRAM AIR FORCE BASE
Blackwater, US Military Working For Taliban Drug Lords
Blackwater and India’s Intelligence Agency are protecting and supporting Taliban to carry out operations in Pakistan
Veterans Today
January 23, 2010
The following article is by Gordon Duff, a Marine Vietnam veteran, grunt and 100% disabled vet. He has been a UN Diplomat, defense contractor and is a widely published expert on military and defense issues. He is active in the financial industry and is a specialist on global trade. Gordon Duff acts as political and economic advisor to a number of governments in Africa and the Middle East.
BLACKWATER/XE ACCUSED OF COMPLICITY IN TERRORISM AND WAR AGAINST US TROOPS
TOP TALIBAN MILITANTS RECEIVE MEDICAL CARE AT BAGRAM AIR FORCE BASE
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has been briefed by the Pakistani Military High Command that they are being overwhelmed by highly trained and extremely well armed militants in the border regions and terrorists operating across the country. We have been told by the highest sources that Blackwater/Xe and other US based mercenary groups have been actively attacking police, military and intelligence organizations in Pakistan as part of operations under employment of the Government of India and their allies in Afghanistan, the drug lords, whose followers make up the key components of the Afghan army.
Investigations referenced in the Pakistan Daily Mail by abrina Elkani and Steve Nelson indicate that, rather than hunt terrorists who have been killing Americans, these groups have actually taken key militant leaders into Afghanistan where they are kept safe and even offered medical treatment by the United States military. Years ago, we all heard the rumor that Osama bin Laden had received care at a US hospital in Qatar after leaving Sudan to take over what we claim was the planning of 9/11. FBI transcripts verify that bin Laden, according to testimony by former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds, was working for the US at that time and had maintained contact with his CIA handlers through the fateful summer of 2001.
The Army of Pakistan has been regularly capturing advanced weapons of Indian manufacture from militants in the border region. India maintains 17 “consular” camps inside Pakistan, near the border, adjacent to Blackwater facilities, falsely designated as CIA or USAID stations. Pakistan claims these operations train Taliban soldiers and terrorists for operations against civilian targets in Pakistan. Thousands have died in Pakistan over recent months during these attacks. Pakistan also contents these same groups are, not only fighting the Pakistan military but the Americans as well.
General Stanley McChrystal had withdrawn American forces from key areas in Afghanistan across from enemy held regions under attack by the Army of Pakistan. We are now told that this allowed those areas to become safe havens for forces formerly operating in Pakistan, who are now enjoying the freedom and hospitality of, not only Afghanistan but are being ignored by the NATO forces in the region.
The untold story is the massive complicity of Americans with their private airline, now suspected in yet another war, not Vietnam, not Central America/Iran Contra but Afghanistan, for a third time, of smuggling narcotics. The pattern is impossible to ignore.
Filed under: 9/11, 9/11 Truth, Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda Tapes, alqaeda, Asif Ali Zadari, Ayman al Zawahiri, Barack Obama, Benazir Bhutto, Bhutto, bin laden, bin laden dead, Bin Laden Tapes, Blackwater, CIA, Colonel Bob Pappas, fake alqaeda, False Flag, FBI, fearmongering, inside job, IntelCenter, Iraq, karzai, Media Fear, Media Manipulation, Military Industrial Complex, nation building, obama, obama deception, obama surge, occupation, Omar Sheikh, osama, osama dead, Pakistan, Propaganda, psychological operations, psychological warfare, Psyops, scam, State Sponsored Terrorism, surge, tora bora, truth movement, War On Terror, yemen, zawahiri
Bin Laden’s Ghost Claims Flight 253 Attack
NoWorldSystem
January 25, 2010
Yet another attempt into making sure everyone is properly scared of another devastating 9/11-style attack on US soil. According to the new Bin Laden audiotape he is claiming responsibility for the foiled Flight 253 attack on a Detroit airliner and promises more attacks if US continues to support Israel. CIA-linked IntelCenter, –a company that was CAUGHT red-handed manipulating an al-Zawahiri video– now claims that this new audio is a ‘possible indicator‘ for an upcoming attack within the next 12 months.
The only purpose for videos like this is to promote fear and to rationalize U.S. occupation in the middle east. However, many people are upset with the occupation of Blackwater in Pakistan and the 700 total deaths from drone strikes, the remorseless night-killings of Afghanis and the $57,077 a minute price the U.S. taxpayers are paying to protect opium crops. Not to mention the people are angry at the recent U.S. air-strike on Yemen that killed at least 120 innocent civilians, including children in December 2009.
The audiotape also fuses the links between Flight 253, AlQaeda and Yemen that will give the government talking points for the reason of the destabilization of the regions and the U.S. economy. The authenticity of the new bin laden tape is unknown, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that it’s probably an impostor that sounds like Bin Laden. In the November 12, 2002 Bin Laden recording, voice-recognition experts in Switzerland said that it was 95% certain the tape was not the voice of the AlQaeda leader, that “it could be an impostor”.
It seems that now more than ever do they want to keep perpetuating the notion that Bin Laden is alive and well to keep the War on Terror going and to keep the American people infuriated that this man who supposedly did 9/11 is still walking and talking. The U.S. Department and the FBI released a photoshop rendition of an aged Bin Laden that turned out to be from online photo of Spanish politician Gaspar Llamazares.
An organization with a budget of billions of dollars was resorting to comic-like methods in its pursuit of terrorists and criminals, said the daily El Mundo.
Is Bin Laden DEAD?
Many people were so traumatized from the events of 9/11/2001 that they immediately believed that an unknown group called AlQaeda and its so-called leader Bin Laden were the culprits based on fear alone. We were told by the Bush administration that if we did not act, the terrorists will hit us again, and so the country was coerced into obedience and accepted what they were told.
We are continued to be coerced by videotapes despite the many prominent men and women who say that Bin Laden is dead from either health problems, military strike or assassination:
This is what former USMC Colonel Bob Pappas had to say about the death of Bin Laden;
- “bin Laden is dead, he was killed during the attacks on Tora Bora. The pathetic political nonsense spewed by Senator John Kerry and his lackeys that the Bush administration allowed bin Laden to walk unmolested into a Pakistani sanctuary is hogwash, no, it’s bovine scatology.”
“However, the administration probably knew that bin Laden was dead, as does this current one, a notion reinforced by a statement made during the waning months of the Bush Administration by Vice President Cheney to that effect; and for that reason among others the Administration chose make Iraq the main effort in the War on Terror.”
According to Afghan President Hamid Karzai says Osama bin Laden is “probably” dead. FBI counter-terrorism chief, Dale Watson, also says he thinks Osama bin Laden is “probably” dead. Pakistan President Asif Ali Zadari says “I don’t think he’s alive” even his counterpart Benazir Bhutto claims Bin Laden was assassinated by “Omar Sheikh”.
Regardless if he’s dead or not, his whereabouts still remain a mystery and yet still remains the big-bad-boogieman that is continually propped up every time he is needed (dropping poll numbers) in order to control the minds of the American people. It won’t be long now until there is a need for another ‘mastermind’ (one that isn’t a corpse) that will take his place as the most evil man on earth.
Osama Videos Behind the Scenes
Filed under: Afghanistan, airstrikes, blackops, Blackwater, CIA, civilian casualties, Coup, Dictatorship, drones, Empire, Fascism, Hamid Karzai', Iraq, karzai, Military, Military Industrial Complex, military strike, nation building, occupation, Pakistan, scandal, Taliban, terrorist funding, uav, War On Terror
Gates Admits Blackwater Operating in Pakistan
Raw Story
January 22, 2010
The Pentagon has gone into damage control mode after Defense Secretary Robert Gates appeared to confirm that security contractor Blackwater is operating in Pakistan.
The admission, quickly denied by Defense Department officials, has set fire to long-simmering rumors inside Pakistan about the involvement of for-profit contractors in the war against the Taliban.
Defense Department officials say Gates did not mean to suggest that Blackwater is now operating on Pakistani soil when a journalist from Pakistan’s Express TV asked him about military contractors’ activities.
In the interview, which took place Thursday, Gates was asked “about another issue that has come up and again … about the phone security companies [sic] that have been operating in Iraq, in Afghanistan and now in Pakistan. Xe International, formerly known as Blackwater or Data Corp. Under what rules are they operating here in Pakistan?”
“Well, they’re operating as individual companies here in Pakistan, in Afghanistan and in Iraq,” Gates replied. “If they’re contracting with us or with the State Department here in Pakistan, then there are very clear rules set forth by the State Department and by ourselves.”
Pentagon backtracks after Gates admits Blackwater operating in PakistanThe Pentagon has gone into damage control mode after Defense Secretary Robert Gates appeared to confirm that security contractor Blackwater is operating in Pakistan.
The admission, quickly denied by Defense Department officials, has set fire to long-simmering rumors inside Pakistan about the involvement of for-profit contractors in the war against the Taliban.
Defense Department officials say Gates did not mean to suggest that Blackwater is now operating on Pakistani soil when a journalist from Pakistan’s Express TV asked him about military contractors’ activities.
In the interview, which took place Thursday, Gates was asked “about another issue that has come up and again … about the phone security companies [sic] that have been operating in Iraq, in Afghanistan and now in Pakistan. Xe International, formerly known as Blackwater or Data Corp. Under what rules are they operating here in Pakistan?”
“Well, they’re operating as individual companies here in Pakistan, in Afghanistan and in Iraq,” Gates replied. “If they’re contracting with us or with the State Department here in Pakistan, then there are very clear rules set forth by the State Department and by ourselves.”
Story continues below…
“This appears to be a contradiction of previous statements made by the Defense Department, by Blackwater, by the Pakistani government and by the US embassy in Islamabad, all of whom claimed Blackwater was not in the country,” investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill wrote.
In November, Scahill reported that Blackwater is operating out of a covert US operating base in Karachi, where it “plan[s] targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives, ‘snatch and grabs’ of high-value targets and other sensitive action inside and outside Pakistan.”
In December, the UK’s Guardian reported that Blackwater guards are patrolling a CIA airbase in Baluchistan province.
Gates’ comments have sent Pakistan’s legislature into an uproar, with at least one government official denying knowledge of Gates’ remarks.
Pakistan has been rife with rumors in recent years about private security contractors operating on the country’s soil, and “about purported US plots to seize Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and build permanent American military bases,” as the Wall Street Journal puts it.
“Mr. Gates himself may have inadvertently helped fuel a new rumor,” the Journal stated.
Defense officials tried to clarify the comment Thursday night, telling reporters that Mr. Gates had been speaking about contractor oversight more generally and that the Pentagon didn’t employ Xe [a.k.a. Blackwater] in Pakistan.
It was too late, however. By Friday morning, an array of Pakistani newspapers, television stations and radio programs reported that “Blackwater” had begun operating in Pakistan as well, citing Mr. Gates’s comments.
Whether it was a mistake or an unintentional admission, Gates’ comments are certain to complicate efforts by the US to prod Pakistan into refocusing away from its long-time rival, India, to the Taliban presence on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
To that end, the US has announced it will provide Pakistan with a dozen Shadow drones, smaller cousins of the Predator drones the US uses in air strikes in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the New York Times reports.
The US has also announced a new strategy for the war effort that focuses on the “re-integration” of Taliban fighters into mainstream society. The effort will be led by Afghan President Karzai. In discussing the plans Friday, Karzai “spoke about offering money and jobs to tempt Taliban fighters to lay down their arms and return to civilian life,” according to Pakistan’s Dawn Media Group.
Filed under: Afghanistan, Baluchistan, big pharma, Britain, Canada, CIA, corruption, drug cartel, drug ring, drug smuggling, drug trafficking, drugs, Europe, gangsters, Hamid Karzai', heroin, Iran, karzai, mafia, medical industrial complex, Military, Military Industrial Complex, nation building, obamas war, occupation, Opium, Pakistan, scandal, Taliban, Tehran, Troops, war crime, War Crimes, war on drugs, War On Terror, Waziristan | Tags: government drug smuggling
Iran says US, UK, Canada assist Afghan drug trade
Press TV
January 14, 2010
A senior Iranian anti-drug official has accused the US, Britain and Canada of playing a major role in Afghanistan’s lucrative drug trade.
On the sidelines of an anti-drug conference in Tehran, deputy head of Iran’s Drug Control Headquarters Taha Taheri said that Western powers are aiding the drug trade in Afghanistan.
“According to our indisputable information, the presence of the United States, Britain and Canada has not reduced the dug trade and the three countries have had major roles in the distribution of drugs,” IRIB quoted Taheri as saying on Thursday.
Iranian officials have always criticized Western countries over their policies towards Afghanistan, where poppy cultivation has drastically increased since the US-led military occupation of the country in 2001.
Taheri added that drug catalysts are being smuggled into Afghanistan through borders that are controlled by US, British and Canadian troops.
Some 13,000 tones of drug catalysts are brought into Afghanistan every year as the war-torn country is the producer of 90 percent of the world’s opium.
The UN office on drugs and crime said last month that the 2009 potential gross export value of opium from Afghanistan stood at $2.8 billion.
Iranian police officials maintain that drug production in Afghanistan has had a 40-fold increase since the US-led invasion of the country in 2001.
“More than 340 tones of drugs have been seized all over Iran in the past nine months,” IRNA quoted the commander of the drug squad, General Hamid Reza Hossein-Abadi, as saying earlier this month.
The UN has praised Tehran for its commitment to the fight against drug trafficking.
Filed under: 2-party system, Afghanistan, airstrikes, alqaeda, Arabian Peninsula, Barack Obama, Britain, bush, bush = obama, Caspian Sea, China, Colonialism, Coup, Dictatorship, drone attacks, Empire, Europe, european union, Flight 253, future wars, gas prices, George Bush, gulf, gulf of Aden, impirialism, India, indian ocean, Iran, Iraq, islamist, Israel, left right paradigm, middle east, Military, Military Industrial Complex, military strike, mutallab, nation building, obama, obama = bush, obamas war, occupation, Oil, Oman, Pakistan, Petrol, puppet governments, resource wars, Robert Gates, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Shiite, Somalia, staged terrorist attack, sunni, Turkmenistan, uav, United Kingdom, war crime, War Crimes, War On Terror, WW3, ww4, yemen | Tags: christmas bomber, Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, underwear bomber
Obama’s Yemeni odyssey targets China
Asia Times
January 9, 2010
A cursory look at the map of region will show that Yemen is one of the most strategic lands adjoining waters of the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula. It flanks Saudi Arabia and Oman, which are vital American protectorates. In effect, Uncle Sam is “marking territory” – like a dog on a lamppost. Russia has been toying with the idea of reopening its Soviet-era base in Aden. Well, the US has pipped Moscow in the race.
The US has signaled that the odyssey doesn’t end with Yemen. It is also moving into Somalia and Kenya. With that, the US establishes its military presence in an entire unbroken stretch of real estate all along the Indian Ocean’s western rim. Chinese officials have of late spoken of their need to establish a naval base in the region. The US has now foreclosed China’s options. The only country with a coastline that is available for China to set up a naval base in the region will be Iran. All other countries have a Western military presence. (are western military puppet governments)
The American intervention in Yemen is not going to be on the pattern of Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama will ensure he doesn’t receive any body bags of American servicemen serving in Yemen. That is what the American public expects from him. He will only deploy drone aircraft and special forces and “focus on providing intelligence and training to help Yemen counter al-Qaeda militants”, according to the US military. Obama’s main core objective will be to establish an enduring military presence in Yemen. This serves many purposes.
A new great game begins
First, the US move has to be viewed against the historic backdrop of the Shi’ite awakening in the region. The Shi’ites (mostly of the Zaidi group) have been traditionally suppressed in Yemen. Shi’ite uprisings have been a recurring theme in Yemen’s history. There has been a deliberate attempt to minimize the percentage of Shi’ites in Yemen, but they could be anywhere up to 45%.
More importantly, in the northern part of the country, they constitute the majority. What bothers the US and moderate Sunni Arab states – and Israel – is that the Believing Youth Organization led by Hussein Badr al-Houthi, which is entrenched in northern Yemen, is modeled after Hezbollah in Lebanon in all respects – politically, economically, socially and culturally.
Yemenis are an intelligent people and are famous in the Arabian Peninsula for their democratic temperament. The Yemeni Shi’ite empowerment on a Hezbollah-model would have far-reaching regional implications. Next-door Oman, which is a key American base, is predominantly Shi’ite. Even more sensitive is the likelihood of the dangerous idea of Shi’ite empowerment spreading to Saudi Arabia’s highly restive Shi’ite regions adjoining Yemen, which on top of it all, also happen to be the reservoir of the country’s fabulous oil wealth.
Saudi Arabia is entering a highly sensitive phase of political transition as a new generation is set to take over the leadership in Riyadh, and the palace intrigues and fault lines within the royal family are likely to get exacerbated. To put it mildly, given the vast scale of institutionalized Shi’ite persecution in Saudi Arabia by the Wahhabi establishment, Shi’ite empowerment is a veritable minefield that Riyadh is petrified about at this juncture. Its threshold of patience is wearing thin, as the recent uncharacteristic resort to military power against the north Yemeni Shi’ite communities bordering Saudi Arabia testifies.
The US faces a classic dilemma. It is all right for Obama to highlight the need of reform in Muslim societies – as he did eloquently in his Cairo speech last June. But democratization in the Yemeni context – ironically, in the Arab context – would involve Shi’ite empowerment. After the searing experience in Iraq, Washington is literally perched like a cat on a hot tin roof. It would much rather be aligned with the repressive, autocratic government of Saleh than let the genie of reform out of the bottle in the oil rich-region in which it has profound interests.
Obama has an erudite mind and he is not unaware that what Yemen desperately needs is reform, but he simply doesn’t want to think about it. The paradox he faces is that with all its imperfections, Iran happens to be the only “democratic” system operating in that entire region.
Iran’s shadow over the Yemeni Shi’ite consciousness worries the US to no end. Simply put, in the ideological struggle going on in the region, Obama finds himself with the ultra-conservative and brutally autocratic oligarchies that constitute the ruling class in the region. Conceivably, he isn’t finding it easy. If his own memoirs are to be believed, there could be times when the vague recollections of his childhood in Indonesia and his precious memories of his own mother, who from all accounts was a free-wheeling intellectual and humanist, must be stalking him in the White House corridors.
Israel moves in
But Obama is first and foremost a realist. Emotions and personal beliefs drain away and strategic considerations weigh uppermost when he works in the Oval Office. With the military presence in Yemen, the US has tightened the cordon around Iran. In the event of a military attack on Iran, Yemen could be put to use as a springboard by the Israelis. These are weighty considerations for Obama.
The fact is that no one is in control as a Yemeni authority. It is a cakewalk for the formidable Israeli intelligence to carve out a niche in Yemen – just as it did in northern Iraq under somewhat comparable circumstances.
Islamism doesn’t deter Israel at all. Saleh couldn’t have been far off the mark when he alleged last year that Israeli intelligence had been exposed as having kept links with Yemeni Islamists. The point is, Yemeni Islamists are a highly fragmented lot and no one is sure who owes what sort of allegiance to whom. Israeli intelligence operates marvelously in such twilight zones when the horizon is lacerated with the blood of the vanishing sun.
Israel will find a toehold in Yemen to be a god-sent gift insofar as it registers its presence in the Arabian Peninsula. This is a dream come true for Israel, whose effectiveness as a regional power has always been seriously handicapped by its lack of access to the Persian Gulf region. The overarching US military presence helps Israel politically to consolidate its Yemeni chapter. Without doubt, Petraeus is moving on Yemen in tandem with Israel (and Britain). But the “pro-West” Arab states with their rentier mentality have no choice except to remain as mute spectators on the sidelines.
Some among them may actually acquiesce with the Israeli security presence in the region as a safer bet than the spread of the dangerous ideas of Shi’ite empowerment emanating out of Iran, Iraq and Hezbollah. Also, at some stage, Israeli intelligence will begin to infiltrate the extremist Sunni outfits in Yemen, which are commonly known as affiliates of al-Qaeda. That is, if it hasn’t done that already. Any such link makes Israel an invaluable ally for the US in its fight against al-Qaeda. In sum, infinite possibilities exist in the paradigm that is taking shape in the Muslim world abutting into the strategic Persian Gulf.
It’s all about China
Most important, however, for US global strategies will be the massive gain of control of the port of Aden in Yemen. Britain can vouchsafe that Aden is the gateway to Asia. Control of Aden and the Malacca Strait will put the US in an unassailable position in the “great game” of the Indian Ocean. The sea lanes of the Indian Ocean are literally the jugular veins of China’s economy. By controlling them, Washington sends a strong message to Beijing that any notions by the latter that the US is a declining power in Asia would be nothing more than an extravagant indulgence in fantasy.
In the Indian Ocean region, China is increasingly coming under pressure. India is a natural ally of the US in the Indian Ocean region. Both disfavor any significant Chinese naval presence. India is mediating a rapprochement between Washington and Colombo that would help roll back Chinese influence in Sri Lanka. The US has taken a u-turn in its Myanmar policy and is engaging the regime there with the primary intent of eroding China’s influence with the military rulers. The Chinese strategy aimed at strengthening influence in Sri Lanka and Myanmar so as to open a new transportation route towards the Middle East, the Persian Gulf and Africa, where it has begun contesting traditional Western economic dominance.
China is keen to whittle down its dependence on the Malacca Strait for its commerce with Europe and West Asia. The US, on the contrary, is determined that China remains vulnerable to the choke point between Indonesia and Malaysia.
An engrossing struggle is breaking out. The US is unhappy with China’s efforts to reach the warm waters of the Persian Gulf through the Central Asian region and Pakistan. Slowly but steadily, Washington is tightening the noose around the neck of the Pakistani elites – civilian and military – and forcing them to make a strategic choice between the US and China. This will put those elites in an unenviable dilemma. Like their Indian counterparts, they are inherently “pro-Western” (even when they are “anti-American”) and if the Chinese connection is important for Islamabad, that is primarily because it balances perceived Indian hegemony.
The existential questions with which the Pakistani elites are grappling are apparent. They are seeking answers from Obama. Can Obama maintain a balanced relationship vis-a-vis Pakistan and India? Or, will Obama lapse back to the George W Bush era strategy of building up India as the pre-eminent power in the Indian Ocean under whose shadow Pakistan will have to learn to live?
US-India-Israel axis
On the other hand, the Indian elites are in no compromising mood. Delhi was on a roll during the Bush days. Now, after the initial misgivings about Obama’s political philosophy, Delhi is concluding that he is all but a clone of his illustrious predecessor as regards the broad contours of the US’s global strategy – of which containment of China is a core template.
The comfort level is palpably rising in Delhi with regard to the Obama presidency. Delhi takes the surge of the Israeli lobby in Washington as the litmus test for the Obama presidency. The surge suits Delhi, since the Jewish lobby was always a helpful ally in cultivating influence in the US Congress, media and the rabble-rousing think-tankers as well as successive administrations. And all this is happening at a time when the India-Israel security relationship is gaining greater momentum.
United States Defense Secretary Robert Gates is due to visit Delhi in the coming days. The Obama administration is reportedly adopting an increasingly accommodative attitude toward India’s longstanding quest for “dual-use” technology from the US. If so, a massive avenue of military cooperation is about to open between the two countries, which will make India a serious challenger to China’s growing military prowess. It is a win-win situation as the great Indian arms bazaar offers highly lucrative business for American companies.
Clearly, a cozy three-way US-Israel-India alliance provides the underpinning for all the maneuvering that is going on. It will have significance for the security of the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula. Last year, India formalized a naval presence in Oman.
All-in-all, terrorism experts are counting the trees and missing the wood when they analyze the US foray into Yemen in the limited terms of hunting down al-Qaeda. The hard reality is that Obama, whose main plank used to be “change”, has careened away and increasingly defaults to the global strategies of the Bush era. The freshness of the Obama magic is dissipating. Traces of the “revisionism” in his foreign policy orientation are beginning to surface. We can see them already with regard to Iran, Afghanistan, the Middle East and the Israel-Palestine problem, Central Asia and towards China and Russia.
Arguably, this sort of “return of the native” by Obama was inevitable. For one thing, he is but a creature of his circumstances. As someone put it brilliantly, Obama’s presidency is like driving a train rather than a car: a train cannot be “steered”, the driver can at best set its speed, but ultimately, it must run on its tracks.
Besides, history has no instances of a declining world power meekly accepting its destiny and walking into the sunset. The US cannot give up on its global dominance without putting up a real fight. And the reality of all such momentous struggles is that they cannot be fought piece-meal. You cannot fight China without occupying Yemen.
Russia, China, Iran redraw energy map
Asia Times
January 9, 2010
The inauguration of the Dauletabad-Sarakhs-Khangiran pipeline on Wednesday connecting Iran’s northern Caspian region with Turkmenistan’s vast gas field may go unnoticed amid the Western media cacophony that it is “apocalypse now” for the Islamic regime in Tehran.
The event sends strong messages for regional security. Within the space of three weeks, Turkmenistan has committed its entire gas exports to China, Russia and Iran. It has no urgent need of the pipelines that the United States and the European Union have been advancing. Are we hearing the faint notes of a Russia-China-Iran symphony?
The 182-kilometer Turkmen-Iranian pipeline starts modestly with the pumping of 8 billion cubic meters (bcm) of Turkmen gas. But its annual capacity is 20bcm, and that would meet the energy requirements of Iran’s Caspian region and enable Tehran to free its own gas production in the southern fields for export. The mutual interest is perfect: Ashgabat gets an assured market next door; northern Iran can consume without fear of winter shortages; Tehran can generate more surplus for exports; Turkmenistan can seek transportation routes to the world market via Iran; and Iran can aspire to take advantage of its excellent geographical location as a hub for the Turkmen exports.
We are witnessing a new pattern of energy cooperation at the regional level that dispenses with Big Oil. Russia traditionally takes the lead. China and Iran follow the example. Russia, Iran and Turkmenistan hold respectively the world’s largest, second-largest and fourth-largest gas reserves. And China will be consumer par excellence in this century. The matter is of profound consequence to the US global strategy.
Filed under: Afghanistan, Air Force, airstrikes, alqaeda, Barack Obama, Blackwater, CIA, civilian casualties, Colonialism, Dictatorship, drone strikes, Empire, Eugenics, Genocide, Military, Military Industrial Complex, military strike, nation building, obama, obama surge, obamas war, occupation, Pakistan, pakistan casualties, Preemptive Strike, preemptive war, surge, Taliban, uav, us drone, War On Terror, Waziristan
Pakistan: Over 700 Civilians Killed in US Drone Strikes
Dawn News
January 3, 2009
PESHAWAR: Of the 44 predator strikes carried out by US drones in the tribal areas of Pakistan over the past 12 months, only five were able to hit their actual targets, killing five key Al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders, but at the cost of over 700 innocent civilians.
According to the statistics compiled by Pakistani authorities, the Afghanistan-based US drones killed 708 people in 44 predator attacks targeting the tribal areas between January 1 and December 31, 2009.
For each Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorist killed by US drones, 140 innocent Pakistanis also had to die. Over 90 per cent of those killed in the deadly missile strikes were civilians, claim authorities.
The success percentage for the drone hits during 2009 was hardly 11 per cent. On average, 58 civilians were killed in these attacks every month, 12 persons every week and almost two people every day. Most of the attacks were carried out on the basis of human intelligence, reportedly provided by the Pakistani and Afghan tribesmen, who are spying for the US-led allied forces in Afghanistan.
Of the five successful predator attacks carried out in 2009, the first one came on January 1, which reportedly killed two senior al-Qaeda leaders – Usama al-Kin and Sheikh Ahmed Salim – both wanted by the American Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Kin was the chief operational commander of Al-Qaeda in Pakistan and had replaced Abu Faraj Al Libi after his arrest in 2004.
The second successful drone attack was conducted on August 5 in South Waziristan that killed the most wanted fugitive chief of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan Baitullah Mehsud along with his wife.
The US State Department had announces a $5million head money for information leading to Baitullah, making him the only Pakistani fugitive with the head money separately announced by Islamabad and Washington.
Car Bomb Kills 93 at Pakistan Volleyball Game
Brisbane Times
January 2, 2010
The death toll from a devastating suicide car bombing in northwest Pakistan has risen to 93, marking a bloody start to 2010 for the insurgency-hit nation, police said on Saturday.
The bomber detonated his explosives-packed vehicle on Friday as fans gathered to watch two local teams face off in a volleyball tournament in a village near the Taliban’s South Waziristan stronghold.
Security has been tightened across Bannu district, which borders South Waziristan, following the blast in Shah Hasan Khan village, police said.
“Five more people died overnight in a government’s main hospital in Lakki Marwat town rising the death toll to 93,” district police chief Mohammad Ayub Khan told AFP.
The huge blast was Pakistan’s deadliest in more than two months, triggering the collapse of more than 20 houses, some with families inside.
The bomber appears to have used 300 kilograms of explosives, Khan said, adding that a three-member team had been formed to investigate the attack.
It was the highest death toll from a suspected militant strike since a massive car bomb on October 28 killed 125 people in a crowded market in the northwestern provincial capital Peshawar.
Filed under: Afghanistan, beiruit bombing, car bombing, CIA, informant, kabul, military casualties, nation building, obamas war, occupation, Pakistan, suicide bombing, Taliban, War On Terror
Bomber who killed 7 CIA agents was ‘potential informant’
BBC News
January 1, 2010
The suicide bomber who killed seven CIA agents in Afghanistan had been courted by the US as a possible informant, US intelligence sources have said.
They said he had not undergone the usual full body search before entering the base in Khost province, and so was able to smuggle in an explosive belt.
The attack was the worst against US intelligence officials since the US embassy in Beirut was bombed in 1983.
US President Barack Obama has praised the work of those killed in a letter.
Paying tribute to the fallen, Mr Obama said those killed were “part of a long line of patriots who have made great sacrifices for their fellow citizens, and for our way of life”.
He told CIA employees in a letter that the victims had “taken great risks to protect our country” and that their sacrifices had “sometimes been unknown to your fellow citizens, your friends, and even your families”.
Claim questioned
From the moment the bomb was detonated inside the base on Wednesday, says the BBC’s Peter Greste in Kabul, questions were raised about how he managed to pass through security.
But now intelligence sources familiar with the investigation have said that CIA agents working from Forward Operating Base Chapman had been attempting to recruit the man as a potential informant.
A US official, and former CIA employee, said such people were often not required to go through full security checks in order to help gain their trust.
“When you’re trying to build a rapport and literally ask them to risk [their lives] for you, you’ve got a lot to do to build their trust,” he told the Associated Press news agency.
The Taliban have said one of their members carried out the attack.
Spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told the BBC the Khost bomber was wearing an army uniform when he managed to breach security at the base, detonating his explosives belt in the gym.
However, this claim was denied by the Afghan defence ministry.
“This is the Taliban talking and nothing the Taliban says should be believed,” said ministry spokesman Zahir Azimi.
Neither the names of the CIA officials killed nor the details of their work have been released because of the sensitivity of US operations, the agency said.
But the head of the base – who was reported to be a mother of three – was said to be among the dead.
As chief, she would have led intelligence-gathering operations in Khost, a hotbed of Taliban activity due to its proximity to Pakistan’s lawless tribal region.
‘Great sacrifice’
CIA Director Leon Panetta said six other agents had been injured in the attack.
He said the dead and injured had been “far from home and close to the enemy”.
“We owe them our deepest gratitude, and we pledge to them and their families that we will never cease fighting for the cause to which they dedicated their lives – a safer America,” he said.
The flags at the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, are being flown at half-mast in honour of the dead.
Forward Operating Base Chapman, a former Soviet military base, is used not only by the CIA but also by provincial reconstruction teams, which include both soldiers and civilians.
The airfield is reportedly used for US drone attacks on suspected militants in neighbouring Pakistan.
A total of 90 CIA employees have been honoured for their deaths in the agency’s service since its inception in 1947, according to the Washington Post newspaper.
Filed under: Afghanistan, Africa, civil unrest, DEBT, depression, despotism, Dictatorship, Dissent, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, Empire, famine, global economy, Great Depression, hyperinflation, Inflation, Iran, malthusian, malthusian catastrophe, middle east, Ordo Ab Chao, Pakistan, Protest, recession, riot, third world, US Economy | Tags: 2010 forecast, 2010 predictions
2010 could be a year that sparks unrest
Economist.com
December 31, 2009
IF THE world appears to have escaped relatively unscathed by social unrest in 2009, despite suffering the worst recession since the 1930s, it might just prove the lull before the storm. Despite a tentative global recovery, for many people around the world economic and social conditions will continue to deteriorate in 2010. An estimated 60m people worldwide will lose their jobs. Poverty rates will continue to rise, with 200m people at risk of joining the ranks of those living on less than $2 a day. But poverty alone does not spark unrest—exaggerated income inequalities, poor governance, lack of social provision and ethnic tensions are all elements of the brew that foments unrest.
Filed under: Afghanistan, Baluchistan, big pharma, Blackwater, CIA, colombia, corruption, death squads, drug cartel, drug smuggling, drug trafficking, drugs, Extraordinary Rendition, FATA, gangsters, Hamid Karzai', heroin, India, Iran, Iran Contra, Iraq, islamibad, Israel, karachi, karzai, mafia, medical industrial complex, mercenaries, Military, Military Industrial Complex, nation building, Nicaragua, obama, occupation, Oliver North, Opium, Pakistan, quetta, Saddam Hussein, scandal, Taliban, Troops, Venezuela, war on drugs, War On Terror, Waziristan, Weinberger, Zardani | Tags: government drug smuggling
Are America’s Mercenary Armies Really Drug Cartels?
Gordon Duff
December 29, 2009
News out of Afghanistan, Pakistan and India reports massive corruption at the highest levels of government, corruption that could only be financed with drug money. In Afghanistan, the president’s brother is known to be one of the biggest drug runners in the world.
In Pakistan, President Zardani is found with 60 million in a Swiss Bank and his Interior Minister is suspected of ties to American groups involved in paramilitary operations, totally illegal that could involve nothing but drugs, there is no other possibility.
Testimony in the US that our government has used “rendition” flights to transport massive amounts of narcotics to Western Europe and the United States has been taken in sworn deposition.
American mercenaries in Pakistan are hundreds of miles away from areas believed to be hiding terrorists, involved in “operations” that can’t have anything whatsoever to do with any CIA contract. These mercenaries aren’t in Quetta, Waziristan or FATA supporting our troops, they are in Karachi and Islamabad playing with police and government officials and living the life of the fatted calf.
The accusations made are that Americans in partnership with corrupt officials, perhaps in all 3 countries, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, are involved in assassinations, “unknown” criminal activities and are functioning like criminal gangs.
There is no oil. There is nothing to draw people into the area other than one product, one that nobody is talking about. Drugs.
The US got involved in massive drug operations, importation, processing and distribution during the Reagan years, supposedly to finance covert CIA operations involving death squads tasked with murdering Sandinista “infrastructure” in Nicaragua.
The deal involved Israel, Iran and the Colombian cartel. Saddam was even involved. In the end, President Reagan was put on the stand only to remember little or nothing of his tenure in office. Lt. Col. Oliver North was convicted as was Secretary of Defense Weinberger and many others. Pardons and “other methods” were used to keep the guilty out of jail.
Now we find what was supposed to be a CIA operation with one company only, Xe, operations that were meant to hunt a couple of terrorist/Taliban leaders in and around Quetta, a city of 1 million in remote Baluchistan has turned into a honeycomb of operations involving millions of dollars and personnel of all kinds, perhaps even ranking diplomats and high government officials, the highest.
The cover of hunting terrorists in remote areas with hundreds of armed men in cities on the other side of the country, cities filled with 5 star hotels, country clubs, polo, cricket and fine restaurants is not really cover, even by CIA standards.
The reports, bribes, actions that look and smell like drug gangs at work, tell a story that nobody wants to talk about.
With 50 billion dollars of opium from Afghanistan alone and crops in Pakistan and India also, managing the world’s heroin supply is, by my estimation, how all of this “muscle” is staying busy. When you see a black van full of armed men, is there a sign somewhere saying:
“We are counter terrorists working for the Central Intelligence Agency and we are only in town here, hundreds of miles from the nearest terrorist because we need a hot shower and to get a noise in the transmission checked out.”
Everyone can choose to believe what they want. It’s time we stopped lying. Its about drugs, always has been, always will, drugs and money. It buys men, it buys guns and it can buy governments and has, as anyone with eyes can see.
Filed under: Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Iraq, Military Industrial Complex, nation building, obama, obama deception, obama surge, occupation, Pakistan, Pentagon, Senate, surge, Troops
Hillary: We’ll Be In Afghanistan for 50 or 60 Years
Washington’s Blog
December 24, 2009
On December 1st, President Obama talked about withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan within 18 months.
Everyone now knows that there is no firm withdrawal date from Afghanistan. See this and this.
But in testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee on December 2nd, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton actually gave a much longer horizon for the presence of U.S. troops in America:
- Senator UDALL.— So, in an ideal world, we would get the job done militarily in the short term; in the medium and long term, we would have a presence in the region, economically, diplomacy, and politically.
Secretary CLINTON. Well, as we have with so many other countries— obviously, we have troops in a limited number of countries around the world; some have been there for 50, 60 years, but we have long-term economic assistance and development programs in many others. And we think that’s a likely outcome in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, that we would be there with a long-term commitment.
Does this mean that U.S. troops will be in Afghanistan in 50 year?
On the surface, Clinton’s statement could be interpreted to mean that troops will leave sooner, but that America will have long-term economic assistance and development programs in Afghanistan for many decades to come.
However, U.S. charities working in Afghanistan report that they are subject to Pentagon sponsorship and control, and so the Afghani people view them as part of the U.S. military (which hampers their aid work).
Therefore, whether or not troops will remain in Afghanistan for a half century or more, the Afghani people and the rest of the world may consider it a permanent occupation.
Remember also that – while the U.S. government has promised to withdraw by December 31, 2011 from Iraq – the U.S. is building numerous permanent military bases in that country. (see this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and this). So talk is cheap.
Filed under: Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Congress, Dictatorship, education, Empire, Fascism, Iraq, Israel, Military, Military Industrial Complex, nation building, obama, obamas war, occupation, oligarchy, Pakistan, Patriot Act, public school, Senate, war funding, War On Terror, war spending
Senate passes $636 billion defense spending bill
WSWS
December 20, 2009
With overwhelming bipartisan support, the United States Senate passed a massive $636 billion military appropriations bill for 2010.
The bill includes some $128 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but it does not fully fund the Obama administration’s escalation in Afghanistan, making likely further appropriations for war spending next year.
The deployment of 30,000 additional US troops is expected to cost $35 to $40 billion a year. On Wednesday, the Pentagon announced that the first of the new troops ordered to Afghanistan have begun to arrive.
All told, US military spending in 2010 will be close to $700 billion. If one adds the hundreds of billions of dollars in military-related spending included in the budgets of other departments, the total is as much as $1 trillion.
The overwhelming support for the bill, which passed 88-10 vote by the Senate on Saturday morning, demonstrates the bipartisan agreement in Washington on the war policy of the Obama administration. The vote comes shortly after President Barack Obama’s Nobel Prize speech, in which he outlined an expansion of US militarism.
Among the many separate provisions of the bill is the allocation of $80 million to acquire more unmanned Predator drones, currently being used to bomb both Afghanistan and Pakistan. The administration is planning on expanding these operations, including drone attacks against insurgents in the Pakistani province of Baluchistan that might target the large city of Quetta.
The Senate, which is currently discussing Obama’s health care overhaul, is expected to vote in support of the measure later this week.
Added on to the bill was a two-month extension of the anti-democratic Patriot Act, which also has bipartisan support. Other amendments to the bill temporarily extended jobless pay and health care assistance for the unemployed. These measures will be reexamined in February.
Meanwhile, states, cities and school districts throughout the country are imposing cuts to balance budget deficits that add up to a small fraction of the military spending bill.
School districts, in particular, are planning crippling cuts in preparation for the second half of the school year, beginning in January. Below are some examples of measures recently pushed through or planned:
• $550 million in K-12 education cuts in Michigan, leading school districts to lay off staff, close schools and eliminate programs.
• $300 million in cuts to K-12 education in Indiana. This amounts to an across-the-board 3-percent cut in the state’s education budget.
• $101.5 million less for public schools in South Carolina, adding to cuts of $85 million in September, along with $38.3 million in Medicaid cuts.
• $110 million in cuts to the 127,000-student Prince George County School District in Maryland, including 490 layoffs, an increase in class sizes, and teacher furloughs.
• $750 million withheld from local governments by New York Governor David Paterson, including funding cuts of between 10 percent and 30 percent for school districts.
• Plans for up to $470 million in cuts to public education in Los Angeles, California, including up to 8,000 layoffs.
The combined budget deficits for all 50 states this year was about $180 billion, less than one third of the military appropriation passed by the Senate.
Obama Approves $30 Billion in Military Aid to Israel Over Next Decade
Antiwar.com
December 18, 2009
As the single largest expense of the 2010 foreign aid budget, President Obama approved $2.775 billion in military aid to Israel, the first payment in a decade-long commitment that will reach at least $30 billion.
Last year, Israel’s military budget amounted to $13.3 billion, so the US funding is a significant portion of their overall expenditure. The US formerly provided both military and civilian aid, but it has since been folded entirely into military aid, at Israel’s request.
The money is not a blank check, however. The US requires that Israel spend at least 75% of the money given in military aid with US military contractors, effectively using the foreign aid budget to subsidize domestic weapon-makers.
In addition to military aid, the US also provides $3.148 billion in loan guarantees to Israel, part of a Treasury Department program aimed at keep Israel’s debt manageable. Ironically, though the US budget is spiraling out of control and America’s own debt continues to rise, there was no serious debate of reducing aid to Israel.
The budget also pledges $500 million in American aid to the Fatah Party’s Palestinian Authority. This aid is contingent on certain requirements, including that the group recognize Israel. This funding is distinct from any funding the CIA may give the Palestinian Authority’s security forces, which would be secret.
Filed under: Afghanistan, Barack Obama, civilian casualties, drone, Military, Military Industrial Complex, nation building, obama, obamas war, occupation, Pakistan, pakistan casualties, uav, war casualties, Waziristan
US drone strikes leave 17 dead in Pakistan
Press TV
December 17, 2009
Several US drones have fired at least 10 missiles into the Pakistani tribal areas, killing 17 people and injuring several others, Pakistani officials say.
Multiple drones launched an onslaught on several houses in North Waziristan on Thursday evening.
An intelligence official said 10 missiles fired from five US unmanned aircraft hit two compounds in Angoshga, some 25 kilometers west of the district’s main town of Miranshah.
“The attacks killed at least 15 militants and injured several more,” DPA quoted the official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Sources say death toll is expected to rise as some of the injured were said to be in critical condition.
Earlier at around midday, two missiles slammed into a house allegedly used by militants.
Filed under: Afghanistan, alqaeda, army, contracting, contractors, DoD, fake alqaeda, House, Iraq, John Tierney, Military, Military Industrial Complex, mujahideen, nation building, occupation, Pakistan, private contractors, protection money, soldiers, State Sponsored Terrorism, Taliban, terrorist funding, terrorist hoax, Troops, War On Terror
Congress to probe ‘U.S. funding of Taliban’
Raw Story
December 17, 2009
A House committee has launched an investigation into claims that US military contractors in Afghanistan are paying the Taliban to guarantee the safety of their transportation convoys, an allegation that could mean American taxpayers are indirectly funding the insurgency that has killed more than 900 American soldiers so far.
“Serious allegations have been [made] that private security providers for US transportation contractors in Afghanistan are regularly paying local warlords and the Taliban for security,” said Rep. John Tierney (D-MA), chairman of the Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs. “After a preliminary inquiry, it has been determined these reports warrant a full-scale subcommittee investigation.”
Tierney said that if the allegations are proven to be true, “it would mean that the United States is unintentionally engaged in a vast protection racket and, as such, may be indirectly funding the very insurgents we are trying to fight.”
Filed under: 9/11 Truth, alqaeda, CIA, David Headley, DEA, double agent, fake alqaeda, False Flag, government terrorism, Hegelian Dialectic, India, inside job, mumbai, mumbai bombing, Pakistan, Problem Reaction Solution, State Sponsored Terrorism, terrorist funding, terrorist recruiting, truth movement, War On Terror | Tags: Daood Gilani, Lashkar-e-Taiba, LeT
Mumbai terror suspect David Headley was ‘rogue US secret agent’
Times Online
December 17, 2009
A key terror suspect who allegedly helped to plan last year’s attacks in Mumbai and plotted to strike Europe was an American secret agent who went rogue, Indian officials believe.
David Headley, 49, who was born in Washington to a Pakistan diplomat father and an American mother, was arrested in Chicago in October. He is accused of reconnoitring targets in India and Europe for Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the Pakistan-based terror group behind the Mumbai attacks and of having links to al-Qaeda. He has denied the charges.
He came to the attention of the US security services in 1997 when he was arrested in New York for heroin smuggling. He earned a reduced sentence by working for the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) infiltrating Pakistan-linked narcotics gangs.
Indian investigators, who have been denied access to Mr Headley, suspect that he remained on the payroll of the US security services — possibly working for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) — but switched his allegiance to LeT.
“India is looking into whether Headley worked as a double agent,” an Indian Home Ministry official said yesterday.
Mr Headley, who changed his name from Daood Gilani, was in Mumbai until two weeks before the attacks on the city, which claimed 166 lives last November. It is alleged that he spent months checking targets in India’s commercial capital, using his Western looks and anglicised name to move in elite social circles, hobnob with Bollywood actors and even to pass himself off as Jewish.
Despite being firmly on the radar of the US intelligence agencies, he was allowed to return to India as recently as March. Indian officials are furious that their American counterparts did not share details of that visit at the time. The Indian media has raised the possibility that Mr Headley was being protected by his American handlers — a theory that experts say is credible.
“The feeling in India is that the US has not been transparent,” said B. Raman, a former counter-terrorism chief in the Indian foreign intelligence service, the Research and Analysis Wing.
“That Headley was an agent for the DEA is known. Whether he was being used by the CIA as well is a matter of speculation, but it is almost certain that the CIA was aware of him and his movements across the subcontinent.”
According to Mr Raman, it is probable that Mr Headley, who was arrested when the US authorities learned that he was about to fly to Pakistan, was listed on the main database of the US National Counterterrorism Centre, a facility used by the CIA and several other American agencies to track terror suspects.
Indian officials suspect that US agencies declined to share intelligence to avoid compromising other secret operations and to to be able to deny any link with Mr Headley.
Analysts believe that the US may also have been anxious to avoid sharing information that could further raise tensions between India and Pakistan, nuclear-armed neighbours who have fought three wars.
According to documents put before a court in Chicago, Mr Headley had links with the Pakistan Army and, through it, with al-Qaeda.
As well as helping to co-ordinate the Mumbai atrocity, Mr Headley is accused of planning attacks on Mumbai’s Bollywood film industry, the Shiv Sena, a Hindu extremist group also based in Mumbai, a major Hindu temple, and a Danish newspaper that had published cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.
The US authorities allege that he was close to Tahawwur Hussain Rana, a former Pakistani schoolmate and businessman who is also being charged with planning to attack the Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten. Mr Rana is accused of having known about the attack on Mumbai in advance.
The CIA denied that Headley had worked for the organisation.
“Any suggestion that Headley was working for the CIA is complete and utter nonsense. It’s flat-out false,” Paul Gimigliano, from the CIA’s Office of Public Affairs, said.
The Indian Home Secretary, Gopal Krishna Pillai, has said that his Government would seek the extradition of Mr Headley — a request that has so far been stonewalled by US officials.
Filed under: 9/11 Truth, Adam Gadahn, Adam Pearlman, Afghanistan, alqaeda, CIA, double agent, fake alqaeda, False Flag, inside job, mujahideen, Pakistan, Propaganda, psychological warfare, Psyops, State Sponsored Terrorism, terrorist funding, Uncategorized, War On Terror, Waziristan | Tags: Abu Laith al-Libi, Jamal al-Badawi, Khaled Jehani
Double Agent Gadahn Apologizes for al-Qaeda Murders
Kurt Nimmo
Prisonplanet.com
December 13, 2009
In order to keep the CIA created terror group al-Qaeda in the news as Obama prepares to send thousands of additional troops to Afghanistan, the corporate media is reporting today on Adam Gadahn’s profuse apology.
“Adam Gadahn, also known as Azzam the American, appeared in a 17-minute video released on Islamist online forums late Friday, offering condolences to the families of innocent people killed in al Qaeda attacks,” reports CNN.
- “We express our condolences to the families of the Muslim men, women and children killed in these criminal acts and we ask Allah to have mercy on those killed and accept them as shohadaa (martyrs),” he says in the video.
“We also express the same in regard to the unintended Muslim victims of the mujahedeen’s operations against the crusaders and their allies and puppets, and to the countless faceless and nameless Muslim victims of the murderous crusades” in Afghanistan, Pakistan’s Waziristan regions and Swat Valley, and elsewhere, he said.
It is a rare example of al Qaeda offering condolences to the families of those killed in the group’s own attacks.
It is also a transparent effort to link the escalation in Afghanistan to a phony terrorist organization named after a mujahideen database and exploited for years now to convince millions of war-weary Americans that a cartoonish gaggle of patsies, mental deficients, and CIA operatives are a threat to U.S. national security.
Adam Gadahn, known by spook sponsored jihadis worldwide as “Azzam the American,” lived in Garden Grove, California, until he followed the call to make badly produced al-Qaeda (As-Sahab) videos. Gadahn’s grandfather was Dr. Carl K. Pearlman, a prominent Jewish urologist in Orange County who sat on the the board of directors of the Anti-Defamation League. Gadahn’s aliases are Abu Suhayb Al-Amriki, Abu Suhayb, Yihya Majadin Adams, Adam Pearlman, and Yayah.
It was said he was killed last year when a U.S. military drone bombed a house where he was supposedly staying in a village called Khushali Torikhel, 12 kilometers south of Mir Ali town, in North Waziristan. It was later reported he escaped unscathed.
The house in Khushali Torikhel was owned by one Madad Khan who worked for the CIA. It appears the bombing was a set-up to kill Abu Laith al-Libi, a Libyan national and said to be an important al-Qaeda leader. If so, Khan paid dearly for his treachery — two of his wives and three of their children were killed in the attack.
Gadahn, the former death metal rocker from California, joins a long line of CIA patsies and tools:
- – Vinnell bombing leader Khaled Jehani (worked for the CIA in Bosnia, Chechnya, and Afghanistan)
– USS Cole bomber Jamal al-Badawi (worked for the CIA in Bosnia)
– the mental case Zacarias Moussaoui (fought for the CIA in Chechnya)
– the notorious media darling Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (worked for the CIA in Bosnia) who in addition to supposedly materminding dozens of terror attacks is also accused of working with Ramzi Yousef on the Operation Bojinka terror plot (Yousef was recruited by the CIA and associated with the intelligence asset the Muslim Brotherhood).
– former head of Egyptian Islamic Jihad (an asset of the US-British intelligence penetrated Muslim Brotherhood) Ayman al-Zawahiri, sidekick of the late Osama bin Laden, a former CIA operative in Bosnia who received gobs of money from the CIA (he also had a free pass to come and go from the United States while on official CIA business)
– Sheikh Omar Abdul-Rahman, the “spiritual leader of the CIA-backed mujaheddin” (according to the Boston Globe) who was considered by the CIA and Special Forces officers to be “valuable asset” (until he was set-up and convicted for the World Trade Center bombings in 1993) and also flew around on the CIA’s dime.
– the key player and former Grand Poobah of the CIA mujahideen operation in Afghanistan, Abdullah Azzam, the founder of Maktab al-Khidamat (the organization received hundreds of millions in U.S. dollars via the CIA) who was blown to bits prior to Osama’s ascension to the al-Qaeda throne. Azzam was also a frequent flier to the United States, land of the Great Satan.
Filed under: Afghanistan, al-qaeda, Al-Qaeda Tapes, alqaeda, Ayman al Zawahiri, Barack Obama, Benazir Bhutto, bin laden, bin laden dead, Bin Laden Tapes, bush, CIA, Col. Bob Pappas, Dick Cheney, donald rumfeld, fake alqaeda, fearmongering, George Bush, inside job, IntelCenter, Iraq, John Kerry, McChrystal, Media Fear, Media Manipulation, Military Industrial Complex, Mullah Omar, nation building, obama, obama deception, obama surge, occupation, osama, osama dead, Pakistan, Propaganda, psychological operations, Psyops, Robert Gates, Saudi Arabia, scam, Stanley McChrystal, State Sponsored Terrorism, surge, tora bora, War On Terror
U.S. Openly Accepts Bin Laden Long Dead
Veterans Today
December 5, 2009
Conservative commentator, former Marine Colonel Bob Pappas has been saying for years that bin Laden died at Tora Bora and that Senator Kerry’s claim that bin Laden escaped with Bush help was a lie. Now we know that Pappas was correct. The embarassment of having Secretary of State Clinton talk about bin Laden in Pakistan was horrific. He has been dead since December 13, 2001 and now, finally, everyone, Obama, McChrystal, Cheney, everyone who isn’t nuts is finally saying what they have known for years.
However, since we lost a couple of hundred of our top special operations forces hunting for bin Laden after we knew he was dead, is someone going to answer for this with some jail time? Since we spent 200 million dollars on “special ops” looking for someone we knew was dead, who is going to jail for that? Since Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney continually talked about a man they knew was dead, now known to be for reasons of POLITICAL nature, who is going to jail for that? Why were tapes brought out, now known to be forged, as legitimate intelligence to sway the disputed 2004 election in the US? This is a criminal act if there ever was one.
In 66 pages, General Stanley McChrystal never mentions Osama bin Laden. Everything is “Mullah Omar” now. In his talk at West Point, President Obama never mentioned Osama bin Laden. Col. Pappas makes it clear, Vice President Cheney let it “out of the bag” long ago. Bin Laden was killed by American troops many many years ago.
America knew Osama bin Laden died December 13, 2001. After that, his use was hardly one to unite America but rather one to divide, scam and play games. With bin Laden gone, we could have started legitimate nation building in Afghanistan instead of the eternal insurgency that we invented ourselves.
Without our ill informed policies, we could have had a brought diplomatic solution in 2002 in Afghanistan, the one we are ignoring now, and spent money rebuilding the country, 5 cents on the dollar compared to what we are spending fighting a war against an enemy we ourselves recruited thru ignorance.
The bin Laden scam is one of the most shameful acts ever perpetrated against the American people. We don’t even know if he really was an enemy, certainly he was never the person that Bush and Cheney said. In fact, the Bush and bin Laden families were always close friends and had been for many years.
What kind of man was Osama bin Laden? This one time American ally against Russia, son of a wealthy Saudi family, went to Afghanistan to help them fight for their freedom. America saw him as a great hero then. Transcripts of the real bin Laden show him to be much more moderate than we claim, angry at Israel and the US government but showing no anger toward Americans and never making the kind of theats claimed. All of this is public record for any with the will to learn.
Gates: No U.S. intel on Osama for ‘years’
Was Bin Laden’s Last Video Faked
Osama Bin Laden Believed Dead by Pak Int.
Probe into ‘Bin Laden death’ leak
Benazir Bhutto Confirms that Osama Bin Laden is Dead (Video)
Israeli intelligence: Bin Laden is dead, heir has been chosen
Bin Laden may be dead, but living on through old sound bites
Osama bin Laden: A dead nemesis perpetuated by the US government
Filed under: Afghanistan, airstrikes, Barack Obama, Blackwater, CIA, deception, drone, erik prince, federal crimes, military strike, nation building, obama, obama deception, obamas war, occupation, Pakistan, scandal, uav, war crime, War Crimes, War On Terror | Tags: graymailing
CIA Hired Blackwater for Pakistan Bombings, Assassinations
Is Erik Prince Graymailing The U.S. Government?
The Nation
December 6, 2009
The in-depth Vanity Fair profile of the infamous owner of Blackwater, Erik Prince, is remarkable on many levels–not least among them that Prince appeared to give the story’s author, former CIA lawyer Adam Ciralsky, unprecedented access to information about sensitive, classified and lethal operations not only of Prince’s forces, but Prince himself. In the article, Prince is revealed not just as owner of a company that covertly provided contractors to the CIA for drone bombings and targeted assassinations, but as an actual CIA asset himself.
While the story appears to be simply a profile of Prince, it might actually be the world’s most famous mercenary’s insurance policy against future criminal prosecution. The term of art for what Prince appears to be doing in the VF interview is graymail: a legal tactic that has been used for years by intelligence operatives or assets who are facing prosecution or fear they soon will be. In short, these operatives or assets threaten to reveal details of sensitive or classified operations in order to ward off indictments or criminal charges, based on the belief that the government would not want these details revealed. “The only reason Prince would do this [interview] is that he feels he is in very serious jeopardy of criminal charges,” says Scott Horton, a prominent national security and military law expert. “He absolutely would not do these things otherwise.”
There is no doubt Prince is in the legal cross-hairs: There are reportedly two separate Grand Juries investigating Blackwater on a range of serious charges, ranging from gun smuggling to extralegal killings; multiple civil lawsuits alleging war crimes and extrajudicial killings; and Congress is investigating the assassination program in which Prince and his company were central players. “Obviously, Prince does know a lot and the government has to realize that once they start prosecuting him,” says Melanie Sloan, a former federal prosecutor and the executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “In some ways, graymail is what any good defense lawyer would do. This is something that’s in your arsenal.”
Filed under: 9/11, 9/11 Truth, alqaeda, Barack Obama, bin laden, Dictatorship, Empire, fake alqaeda, nation building, obama, obama deception, occupation, osama, Pakistan, Taliban
Obama Lied: Taliban Didn’t Refuse to Hand Over Bin Laden
OEN
December 4, 2009
Obama slipped past a real doozy Tuesday night when he said the Taliban refused to hand over Bin Laden. It just ain’t so. They tried three times to open negotiations for this, but Bush refused each time. He wanted to bomb people so bad it hurt.
- UK Guardian:
A senior Taliban minister has offered a last-minute deal to hand over Osama bin Laden during a secret visit to Islamabad, senior sources in Pakistan told the Guardian last night…
For the first time, the Taliban offered to hand over Bin Laden for trial in a country other than the US without asking to see evidence first in return for a halt to the bombing, a source close to Pakistan’s military leadership said.
The Taliban have offered to hand over Bin Laden before but only if sufficient evidence was presented. Bin Laden is wanted both for the September 11 attacks and for masterminding the bombings of two US embassies in East Africa in 1998 in which 224 people were killed. He is also suspected of involvement in other terrorist attacks, including the suicide bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen last year.
But until now the Taliban regime has consistently said it has not seen any convincing evidence to implicate the Saudi dissident in any crime.
“Now they have agreed to hand him over to a third country without the evidence being presented in advance,” the source close to the military said.”
Filed under: Afghanistan, alqaeda, Barack Obama, Benazir Bhutto, bin laden, bush, CIA, fake alqaeda, George Bush, Gilani, gordon brown, nation building, obama, obama surge, occupation, osama, Pakistan, Robert Gates, surge, War On Terror | Tags: Leon Panetta, Yousaf Raza Gilani
Gates: No U.S. intel on Osama for ‘years’
MSNBC
December 6, 2009
The United States does not know where al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden is hiding and has not had any good intelligence on his whereabouts in “years,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Saturday.
Speaking in an interview to be aired on Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” program, Gates also said he could not confirm reports this week that a detainee might have seen bin Laden in Afghanistan earlier this year.
“We don’t know for a fact where Osama bin Laden is. If we did, we’d go and get him,” Gates said in excerpts released by ABC.
‘I think it’s been years’
Asked when was the last time the United States had any good intelligence on his whereabouts, Gates said, “I think it’s been years.”
The British Broadcasting Corp. reported earlier this week that a detainee in Pakistan claimed to have information that bin Laden was in Ghazni in eastern Afghanistan in January or February.
The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee released a report late last month that blamed the lack of concerted efforts by former President George W. Bush’s administration and U.S. military commanders for allowing bin Laden to escape from the Tora Bora caves of Afghanistan in late 2001.
Bin Laden not in Pakistan, says prime minister
Guardian UK
December 3, 2009
The Pakistani prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, today claimed that Osama bin Laden was not in Pakistan – just days after Gordon Brown criticised the Islamabad government for not doing enough to capture the al-Qaida leader.
Bin Laden is widely believed to be sheltering in the north of Pakistan – a belief reiterated by the CIA director, Leon Panetta, over the summer – and on Sunday Brown criticised the Islamabad government for not doing more to track him down.
But quizzed by British journalists at a joint press conference with the UK prime minister in London as to why the al-Qaida leader remained at large, Gilani said the Pakistani administration had not been provided with any “credible or actionable intelligence” as to his whereabouts.
“I don’t think Osama bin Laden is in Pakistan,” he said.
President of Pakistan: Osama Bin Laden is dead
Benazir Bhutto: Bin Laden was Murdered
Filed under: 2-party system, afghan casualties, Afghanistan, airstrikes, blackops, Blackwater, bush = obama, CIA, Coup, death squads, drone, erik prince, Iraq, left right paradigm, military strike, MSNBC, nation building, neocons, Neolibs, obama deception, obama surge, obamas war, occupation, Pakistan, pakistan casualties, Rachel Maddow, secret wars, special forces, State Sponsored Terrorism, surge, Taliban, Troops, uav, war crime, War Crimes, War On Terror | Tags: Jeremy Scahill
Scahill: ‘The war is in Pakistan right now’
Military drones show no remorse on Pakistan civilians, creating U.S. hatred
Raw Story
December 4, 2009
In the wake of President Obama’s plan to increase the number of US troops in Afghanistan, questions are being raised about the use of private contractors in US operations there. The acknowledgement by Eric Prince, founder of military contractor Blackwater, that he has been serving for years as a CIA asset only intensifies these concerns.
For Jeremy Scahill, author of the bestselling book Blackwater, however, the real concern is not Afghanistan but Pakistan, where according to an article in the New York Times, “the White House has authorized an expansion of the C.I.A.’s drone program.”
“We need to view this sober reality,” Scahill told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Thursday. “The war is in Pakistan right now. There’s no question about it. The question, though, is how much it’s going to expand. … These are actions that are going to destabilize Pakistan and are going to create new enemies for the United States because of the high civilian casualties. … Here you have military operations inside a country that we don’t have a declaration of war against.”
Scahill emphasized that the most destabilizing actions come not from the CIA but from Blackwater mercenaries, whom he recently described in The Nation as working for US special forces to “plan targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives, ‘snatch and grabs’ of high-value targets and other sensitive action inside and outside Pakistan.”
The drone attacks outsourced to Blackwater are the source of the highest numbers of civilian casualties. Scahill told Maddow that one of his sources is a “very well-placed military intelligence source [who] is offended at the idea that you have these operations happening outside of the military chain of command and with no oversight from the Congress.”
“Blackwater has been operating under the cover of a training program,” Scahill explained. “Blackwater is training the Pakistani Frontier Corps, which is a federal paramilitary force that is hunting down high-value targets in the frontier province. A former Blackwater executive told me that the line is being crossed — that Blackwater guys are actually going out on these raids.”
Scahill also revealed a few interesting tidbits about Eric Prince’s decision to out himself as a CIA asset, saying, “I see this sort of as Eric Prince taking out an insurance policy for himself. … Eric Prince is in the cross-hairs now of the Congress, the federal investigators, and others … and it’s a way of trying to insulate himself from future attacks.”
This video is from MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show, broadcast Dec. 3, 2009.
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