Filed under: bagram, Barack Obama, black sites, CIA, Detainees, Guantanamo, human rights, Military, Military Industrial Complex, obama, obama deception, obamas war, Oppression, rendition, Torture, Troops
Report: Afghans in secret jail ‘made to dance’ to use bathroom
Raw Story
April 15, 2010
Bagram prisoners ‘moved around in wheelchairs with goggles and headphones on’
The US military is operating a “secret jail” at an Afghan airbase where prisoners are deprived of sleep and “made to dance” by US troops whenever they want to use the toilet, a BBC report states.
The BBC interviewed nine people who say they were held at the facility, known as the “black hole,” at the site of the Bagram air base. The prison appears to be separate from the main Bagram prison, which the US established after the 2001 invasion and which continues to be the target of human rights complaints.
A man identified only as “Mirwais” who says he spent 24 days at the facility told the BBC that prisoners are routinely subjected to sleep deprivation.
“I could not sleep, nobody could sleep because there was a machine that was making noise,” said Mirwais. “There was a small camera in my cell, and if you were sleeping they’d come in and disturb you.”
“Mirwais said he was made to dance to music by American soldiers every time he wanted to use the toilet,” the BBC reports.
Witnesses said the lights were kept on in their cells at all times; that the Red Cross had no access to the facility; and most had been beaten by US troops before they were brought there. The BBC report does not address under what circumstances the witnesses found themselves there, or whether any of them were insurgents.
This is not the first time that allegations have been made of a secret facility at Bagram. Last November, Raw Story reported on claims of a secret site at Bagram that was still in operation as of late last year, apparently in contravention of President Obama’s order, upon taking office, to shut down the CIA’s “black sites” around the world.
Three people claiming to be former inmates of the facility told the New York Times “of being held for months after the intensive interrogations were over without being told why. One detainee said he remained at the Bagram prison complex for two years and four months; another was held for 10 months total.”
The secret site appears to be separate from the main prison facility at Bagram, which itself has been the target of complaints from human rights activists. Unlike the Guantanamo Bay facility, prisoners at Bagram aren’t given access to lawyers.
“To this date, no prisoner has ever seen a lawyer in Bagram,” lawyer Tina Foster told the BBC.
The news organization was given a rare peek inside the main Bagram prison complex, a new facility that replaced an aging one earlier this year:
- In the new jail, prisoners were being moved around in wheelchairs with goggles and headphones on. The goggles were blacked out, and the purpose of the headphones was to block out all sound. Each prisoner was handcuffed and had their legs shackled.
Prisoners are kept in 56 cells, which the prisoners refer to as “cages”. The front of the cells are made of mesh, the ceiling is clear, and the other three walls are solid. Guards can see down into the cells above.
The BBC was told by the military to wear protective eye glasses whilst walking past the mesh cells as prisoners sometimes throw excrement or semen at the guards.
Faced with a lawsuit from the ACLU, the US military earlier this year released a long-secret list of prisoners at Bagram. The list showed some 645 prisoners being held at the facility, but the BBC now reports that number to be closer to 800, thanks to an increase in prisoner intake likely linked to the increased military effort in Afghanistan in recent months.
“The US military itself has admitted that about 80% of those at Bagram are probably not hardened terrorists,” the BBC reports.
In March, the Times of London reported that the Bagram facility could be expanded and used as a replacement for the Guantanamo Bay detention center. The idea is “being considered as US officials try to find an alternative to Guantánamo Bay,” the Times said.
Last year, former CBS anchorman Dan Rather said “there is a school of thought” that Bagram is already replacing Guantanamo as the site where terrorist suspects from around the world are to be held.
“Some of the contentions that were made about Guantanamo are starting to be made about Bagram,” Rather told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. “The critical thing is, there is no transparency.”
The Guantanamo Guidebook
Filed under: halliburton, Income Tax, middle class, Military Industrial Complex, military spending, nation building, obamas war, occupation, Taxpayers, Troops, u.s. soldiers, US Economy, War On Terror
Tax Day 2010: 53% of your Tax Dollar goes to the Military
Examiner
April 13, 2010
Health care? Social Security? An economic stimulus bill? Wars? Bailing out Wall Street banks? Education? Our nation’s infrastructure? Each may be a good guess based on the issues that get attention in the mainstream media.
The correct answer may be that 53% of the federal tax being collected in 2010 has already been allocated for defense spending.
According to Philadelphia investigative journalist Dave Lindorff, writing for OpEdNews:
The 2011 military budget, by the way, is the largest in history, not just in actual dollars, but in inflation adjusted dollars, exceeding even the spending in World War II, when the nation was on an all-out military footing. Military spending in all its myriad forms works out to represent 53.3% of total US federal spending.
That would mean the military’s share of the approximately $3 trillion 2011 budget is about $1.6 trillion.
On the other hand, anyone can find a handy fact sheet posted on the white house’s web site that puts the department of defense’s share of the budget at a “mere” $708 billion, seemingly bringing the cost down to about 24 cents on the tax dollar.
So, who’s telling the truth? The answer is that both are, depending on how one looks at federal budget allocations.
Just like banks, airlines or a sleazy car dealer, the pentagon and white house’s initial invoice does not include hidden costs and amenities, but the final bill does. One of those add-ons is called supplemental spending.
A war appropriations bill to supplementally finance the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for an additional $106 billion was signed by President Obama last year. The administration is already poised to ask congress for another $35 billion this year, which they will surely get. There are estimates that supplemental war funding could reach $300 billion by the end of 2010. You can view a cost of war counter here. If supplemental war spending is based on what was spent last year, that brings the defense portion of the check to $814 billion.
A closer look reveals that the 2011 defense budget also does not include: spending on veterans affairs – that means VA hospitals, benefits, etc., for any ex-military personnel that are no longer on active or reserve status. The bill for that is $60 billion. That $60 billion does not include any public funds spent on veterans or immediate family that collect public benefits, such as social security.
Homeland security, judging by the title, can be added to the defense part of the check for approximately another $4.3 billion, bringing the bill to approximately $878.3 billion. So can NASA, for another $19 billion, since their primary function is deploying military satellites. And the National Intelligence Program for another (classified) amount, estimated at about $75 billion. Even the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers gets billed separately at about $5 billion.
Without even considering the costs of foreign military aid to nations such as Israel, Pakistan, Egypt and Columbia, or the costs of purchasing services from private contractors such as Xe (formerly Blackwater) to provide security in occupied countries, or Halliburton to rebuild them, defense spending is already well over $900 billion. There are 750 U.S. military bases in 50 nations and not including Iraq and Afghanistan, approximately 255,000 service members stationed abroad. There are 116,000 in Europe and nearly 100,000 in Japan and South Korea.
Like all government spending, of course, the defense portion has to be financed, so when money is borrowed from whomever or wherever to pay for the $900+ billion tab, add more interest to the approximately $250-400 billion in interest already owed through debt created by defense spending. The huge sum will be borrowed, mostly from China and Japan, to which the U.S. already owes $1.5 trillion.
Having trouble keeping up with your bill yet? That’s because it is designed that way. It gets even more complicated when you have to consider that Social Security expenditures are included in the overall budget, even though it is a trust that is raised and spent seperately from income taxes. What you pay by April 15, 2010 goes to the federal funds portion of the budget. That makes military spending seem smaller in comparison to overall government spending. That also easily puts the figure at about 53 percent.
No matter which figure you want to believe – the $1.6 trillion or the $708 billion, it may be enlightening to put that in two other perspectives.
One is that, according to the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, the U.S. accounted for 48% of global military spending in 2008, compared to 5% for Russia, 8% for China, and 20% for all our European allies combined.
The second is that, according to the non-profit National Priorities Project, less than half of the $708 billion estimate – $300 billion, could have paid for health care for 131,780,734 American children for a year, or for 53,872,201 students to receive Pell Grants of $5,550, or for the salaries and benefits of 4,911,552 elementary school teachers for that same year. Restoring roads and bridges in this country to the condition of past decades and keeping them in decent repair so that they do not fall apart would cost $166 billion a year for the next five years.
Tax day is almost here, and whether 24 cents of your hard-earned dollars, 53 cents, or something in between goes toward military spending, there may be a few things to think about. Do we really need to spend almost as much as the rest of the world combined on “defense?” Could investing our tax $’s to improve our country within our borders provide a better return of investment than occupying countries halfway around the world? If U.S. taxpayers knew how much they are paying for defense and the wars through direct taxes instead of bookkeeping fraud, how long would this continue?
Let’s not forget the human costs of war either…
Filed under: Dictatorship, Empire, Military Industrial Complex, nation building, occupation, Troops, u.s. soldiers, War On Terror
Fast food axed at Afghan U.S. bases
Reuters
April 6, 2010
Fast food joints where soldiers wolf down burgers and pizza will soon be a thing of the past at bases in Afghanistan, as the U.S. military reminds soldiers they are at war and not in “an amusement park.”
In the sprawling military base at Kandahar, the fast food outlets facing the axe include Burger King, Pizza Hut, and the U.S. chain restaurant T.G.I. Friday’s that features a bar with alcohol-free margaritas and other drinks — all set along the bustling “Boardwalk” area of the base.
On any given day, the giant square-shaped walkway features the surreal sight of soldiers sipping gourmet coffee and eating chocolate pastries with guns slung across their shoulders, while Canadians play ice hockey at a nearby rink and fighter jets thunder overhead.
The U.S. military says its beef with the burger joints is that they take up valuable resources like water, power, flight and convoy space and that cutting back on non-essentials is key to running an efficient military operation.
“This is a war zone — not an amusement park,” Command Sgt. Maj. Michael Hall wrote in a blog earlier this year.
Filed under: Afghanistan, army, Baghdad, civilian casualties, civilian death toll, dehumanization, Dictatorship, Empire, Fascism, George Bush, human rights, Iraq, Military Industrial Complex, nation building, occupation, Oppression, Pentagon, Troops, u.s. soldiers, war crime, War Crimes, War On Terror, wikileaks
Wikileak’d video shows U.S. troops killing civilians, children and 2 Reuters reporters
FULL VIDEO
Iraqi family demands justice for US attack death
Military Massacre of Pregnant Afghan Women Covered Up as ‘Honor Killings’
Ret. intel officer: US troops violated Rules of Engagement in Reuters shooting
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: alaska, California, chavez, China, climate change, climate modification, depopulation, Dictatorship, earthquake machine, eco terrorism, elf, Empire, Eugenics, Genocide, geo-engineering, Global Warming, global warming hoax, government crimes, government terrorism, HAARP, haiti, Hugo Chavez, ionosphere, Iran, Military, Military Industrial Complex, nation building, navy, New World Order, occupation, Population Control, Russia, super weapons, Troops, Venezuela, War On Terror, weather control, weather manipulation, William Cohen | Tags: Dr. Nick Begich, earthquake weapons, haiti earthquake, haiti quake, High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, longitudinal wave interferometers, LWI, Russian Northern Fleets
Chavez and the Russian Fleet: U.S. Used “Earthquake Weapon” On Haiti
Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
January 24, 2010
Earlier this week, a Spanish newspaper quoted Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez as saying the U.S. Navy caused the Haiti earthquake with a tectonic weapon. The Venezuelan media reported that the earthquake “may be associated with the project called HAARP, a system that can generate violent and unexpected changes in climate,” Press TV reported on January 21.
Chavez cited a report from Russia’s Northern Fleet. According to the report, the U.S. Navy made a mistake with a secret “earthquake weapon” and the result was the Haitian earthquake. The Russians believe the intended target was Iran. “Though Russian Northern Fleets’ report was not confirmed by official sources, the comments attracted special attention in some US and Russian media outlets including Fox news and Russia Today,” writes Pragmatic Witness blog. “Russia Today’s report said that Moscow has also been accused of possessing and utilizing such weapons.”
“Speaking on his weekly television show, Chavez opined that the U.S. mission in Haiti was a ruse to initiate military occupation,” the New York Daily News said.
Venezuelan media “added that the U.S. government’s HAARP program, an atmospheric research facility in Alaska (and frequent subject of conspiracy theories), was also to blame for a Jan. 9 quake in Eureka, Calif., and may have been behind the 7.8-magnitude quake in China that killed nearly 90,000 people in 2008,” Fox News reported on Thursday.
In 1997, former U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen made the following statement:
- Others [terrorists] are engaging even in an eco-type of terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves… So there are plenty of ingenious minds out there that are at work finding ways in which they can wreak terror upon other nations…It’s real, and that’s the reason why we have to intensify our [counterterrorism] efforts.
Cohen was talking about longitudinal EM wave interferometers (LWI) technology (also known as “Tesla howitzers”). LWI waves can effortlessly pass through the ocean and earth. Experts claim LWI waves can in fact pass through the earth and emerge on the other side. The United States and Russia have possessed this technology for decades.
Cohen would have you believe it is a technology that only terrorists would use. It depends on who you would call a terrorist.
In 1966, Professor Gordon J. F. MacDonald, associate director of the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics at the University of California, Los Angeles, was a member of the President’s Science Advisory Committee. MacDonald published papers on the use of environmental-control technologies for military purposes, including “earthquake engineering” (he also wrote about weather manipulation, climate modification, polar ice cap melting or destabilization, ozone depletion techniques).
“The revealed secrets surprised legislators,” writes Dr. Nick Begich. “Would an inquiry into the state of the art of electromagnetic manipulation surprise lawmakers today? They may find out that technologies developed out of the HAARP experiments in Alaska could deliver on Gordon MacDonald’s vision because leading-edge scientists are describing global weather as not only air pressure and thermal systems, but also as an electrical system.”
Chavez says US ‘weapon’ caused Haiti quake
Military Trained For Haiti Disaster Relief Before Earthquake
Filed under: alaska, chavez, depopulation, Dictatorship, earthquake machine, eco terrorism, elf, Empire, Eugenics, Genocide, HAARP, haiti, Hugo Chavez, ionosphere, Military, Military Industrial Complex, nation building, New World Order, occupation, Population Control, super weapons, Troops, Venezuela, weather control, weather manipulation | Tags: earthquake weapons, haiti earthquake, haiti quake, High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program
Chavez says US ‘weapon’ caused Haiti quake
Press TV
January 21, 2010
Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez Wednesday accused the United States of causing the destruction in Haiti by testing a ‘tectonic weapon’ to induce the catastrophic earthquake that hit the country last week.
President Chavez said the US was “playing God” by testing devices capable of creating eco-type catastrophes, the Spanish newspaper ABC quoted him as saying.
A 7.0-magnitude quake rattled the desperately poor country on January 12, killing an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 people. As Haiti looks to the world for basic sustenance, the authorities say the biggest dangers facing survivors are untreated wounds and rising disease.
Following the quake, appeals for humanitarian aid were responded to globally. However, the nation is struggling with violence and looting as aid is still not enough for the tens of thousands left homeless and injured.
Chavez said the killer earthquake followed a test of “weapon of earthquakes” just offshore from Haiti. He did not elaborate on the source of his claim.
The outspoken leader had earlier accused the US of occupying Haiti “under the guise of the natural disaster.”
At least 11,000 US troops have been dispatched to the country to provide security for aid distribution efforts.
Venezuelan media have reported that the earthquake “may be associated with the project called HAARP, a system that can generate violent and unexpected changes in climate.”
HAARP, the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, is a study run in Alaska directed at the occasional reconfiguration of the properties of the Earth’s ionosphere to improve satellite communications.
Former US Secretary of Defense William Cohen in 1997 expressed concerned over countries engaging “in eco-type of terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves.”
U.S. Military Trained to Provide Haiti Relief BEFORE Earthquake Hit!
HAARP: Secret weapon for weather modification, electromagnetic warfare?
Filed under: Coup, Cuba, haiti, Military, Military Industrial Complex, nation building, occupation, Oil, Pentagon, resource wars, Troops, Venezuela, yemen | Tags: haiti earthquake, haiti port, haiti quake, Port au Prince
20,000 U.S. troops on the ground in Haiti soon!
Are We in Haiti because of Oil?
Peter Schlosser
Prisonplanet.com
January 21, 2010
It has been a little over a week since the devastating earthquake hit just outside Port au Prince, Haiti. Since that day, I have watched in horror as the Haitian people and their society have quickly submerged into a quagmire of social unrest and political grandstanding. Once I observed the mass-murder posse of Team Obama, Bush and Clinton begin circling the wagons and the rapid US militarization of Port au Prince, including the occupation of the Presidential Palace, to the tune of now almost 10,000 US boots on the ground, I began to get suspicious. Call me crazy. I know of the sad history of Haiti imposed upon the tiny former slave nation by one imperial power after the next. But when I see 10,000 American soldiers descend upon a nation in less than a week, my radar flies into the red zone. Just when I was beginning to brush up on the story behind the story regarding Yemen, now I’m thrashed about one more time and forced to begin scrambling for the next story behind the story for this week’s latest NWO hot topic.
After a few hours on the Internet, I discovered an article posted in January of 2008 http://www.abibitumikasa.com/forums/oppression-afrikans-economically/41112-oil-mining-haiti-worlds-elite-robbing-people-blind.html indicating that large amounts of, you guessed it, OIL had indeed been discovered in Haiti a short while back. According to the article, scientists Ginette and Daniel Mathurin indicated that “under Haitian soil it is rich in oil and fuel.” “We have identified 20 oil sites.” said ‘Daniel Mathurin stating that “5 of them are considered of great importance by specialists and politicians.”
“The Central Plateau, including the region of Thomonde, the plain of the Cul-de-Sac and the bay of Port-au-Prince are full of hydrocarbons,”he said adding that “the oil reserves of Haiti are more important than those of Venezuela.” “An Olympic pool compared to a glass of water; that is the comparison to illustrate the importance of Haitian oil compared with those of Venezuela,” he explains.
“Venezuela is one of the world’s largest producers of oil.”
We know that large amounts of oil had been discovered in Cuba a little over a year ago as appeared in a London Guardian article from Saturday, October 18th 2008. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/18/cuban-oil .
“ Mother nature, it emerged this week, appears to have blessed the island with enough oil reserves to vault it into the ranks of energy powers. The government announced there may be more than 20bn barrels of recoverable oil in offshore fields in Cuba’s share of the Gulf of Mexico, more than twice the previous estimate.
If confirmed, it puts Cuba’s reserves on par with those of the US and into the world’s top 20. Drilling is expected to start next year by Cuba’s state oil company Cubapetroleo, or Cupet.
“It would change their whole equation. The government would have more money and no longer be dependent on foreign oil,” said Kirby Jones, founder of the Washington-based US-Cuba Trade Association. “It could join the club of oil exporting nations.” Wrote Rory Carroll, Latin America Correspondent for the Guardian.
If one looks at a map and notices that Haiti and Cuba are only about 60 miles apart separated by the Winward Passage, one might then assume that perhaps the two Caribbean nations might be sitting on the same stretch of oil field.
And the plot thickens. According to the article regarding Haitian oil: “ Daniel and Ginette Malthurin indicate that the American government had in 2005 authorized the use of strategic reserves of the United States. The door should be used by politicians to launch Haitian negotiations with American companies in the context of the exploitation of these deposits.”
“The specialists contend that the government of Jean Claude Duvalier had verified the existence of a major oil field in the Bay of Port-au-Prince shortly before his downfall.”
Hmmm, intriguing. It would seem that the Pentagon’s interest in Haiti during this crisis just might stretch a bit beyond their normal warm and fuzzy humanitarian intentions. It feels like we’ve been here before. Keep your eyes on the bouncing ball and watch for Big Oil to move into the region shortly. Perhaps this may also serve as a wee bit of gunboat diplomacy targeted at Cuba and, more ominously, a back-up plan to secure reserves in the Empire’s backyard as Obama and the War Machine get ready to take on Venezuela. More will be revealed.
Ex-minister warns of US ‘takeover’ of Haiti
US says it will stay in Haiti for long term
Chavez says U.S. occupying Haiti in name of aid
Filed under: 2nd Amendment, anti gun, army, Bill Clinton, catastrophic event, civil unrest, Concentration Camps, Continuity of Government, Dictatorship, Dissent, DoD, Empire, Eugenics, Executive Order, Fascism, FEMA, Fema Camps, final solution, foreign troops, Garden Plot, Genocide, global government, Gun Control, Holocaust, Indiana, Martial Law, michigan, Military Industrial Complex, mississippi, national emergency, Nazi, New World Order, non compliance, NWO, Operation garden plot, peacekeepers, political dissent, Population Control, Soviet Union, Troops, u.s. soldiers, united nations, urban warfare, Waco, world government | Tags: agile provider, airmar, CIVIL AFFAIRS OPERATIONS, eo12148
Foreign Troops Gearing Up for Martial Law in America
Filed under: 2-party system, Barack Obama, bush, bush = obama, catastrophic event, civil unrest, Continuity of Government, DEBT, devaluation, DHS, Dictatorship, Dissent, DoD, domestic extremism, domestic terror, domestic terrorism, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, Empire, Executive Order, FEMA, Fema Camps, George Bush, Great Depression, Homeland Security, HR 1585, hyperinflation, Inflation, Insurrection Act, katrina, left right paradigm, Martial Law, militarized police, national emergency, national guard, non compliance, North American Union, NORTHCOM, obama, obama = bush, obama deception, Pentagon, Police State, political dissent, Posse Comitatus, Protest, Troops, u.s. constitution, urban warfare, US Economy, War On Terror, White House | Tags: 2008 National Defense Authorization Act, BCT, Brigade Combat Team, Cable Splicer, civil disturbance, Council of Governors, EO 12656, EO 13528, Garden Plot, HSPD 20, HSPD-8, NSPD 51, Vigilant Shield 09
Obama Signed Plans For Martial Law Apparatus
Blacklisted News
January 16, 2010
 U.S. government is ratcheting up the militarized police state as they anticipate massive resistance to the economic collapse. |
In the wake of the Flight 253 provocation, over-hyped terrorism panics, and last year’s Big Pharma and media-engineered hysteria over the H1N1 flu pandemic, President Barack Obama signed Executive Order 13528 on January 11.
Among other things, the Executive Order (EO) established a Council of Governors, an “advisory panel” chosen by the President that will rubber-stamp long-sought-after Pentagon contingency plans to seize control of state National Guard forces in the event of a “national emergency.”
According to the White House press release, the ten member, bipartisan Council was created “to strengthen further the partnership between the Federal Government and State Governments to protect our Nation against all types of hazards.”
“When appointed” the announcement continues, “the Council will be reviewing such matters as involving the National Guard of the various States; homeland defense; civil support; synchronization and integration of State and Federal military activities in the United States; and other matters of mutual interest pertaining to National Guard, homeland defense, and civil support activities.”
Clearly designed to weaken the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 which bars the use of the military for civilian law enforcement, EO 13528 is the latest in a series of maneuvers by previous administrations to wrest control of armed forces historically under the democratic control of elected state officials, and a modicum of public accountability.
One consequence of moves to “synchronize and integrate” state National Guard units with those of the Armed Forces would be to place them under the effective control of United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM), created in 2002 by Bushist legislators in both capitalist parties under the pretext of imperialism’s endless “War on Terror.” At the time, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called USNORTHCOM’s launch “the most sweeping set of changes since the unified command system was set up in 1946.”
The real-world consequences of those changes weren’t long in coming.
Following their criminal inaction during 2005’s Hurricane Katrina catastrophe, the Bush regime sought, but failed, to seize control of depleted Gulf Coast National Guard units, the bulk of which had been sent to Iraq along with equipment that might have aided the recovery. Bush demanded that then Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco sign over control of the Guard as well as state and local police units as the blood price for federal assistance.
At the height of the crisis, Bush cited presidential prerogatives for doing so under the Insurrection Act, a repressive statute which authorizes the President to federalize National Guard units when state governments fail to “suppress rebellion.” How the plight of citizens engulfed by Katrina’s flood waters could be twisted into an act of “rebellion” was achieved when Orwellian spin doctors, aided and abetted by a compliant media, invented a new criminal category to cover traumatized New Orleans residents: “Drowning while Black.”
Fast forward five years. Given the serious implications such proposals would have for a functioning democracy, the media’s deafening silence on Obama’s Executive Order is hardly surprising. Like their role as cheerleaders in the escalating wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, media self-censorship tell us much about the state of affairs in “new normal” America.
Like his predecessors in the Oval Office, stretching back to the 1960s with Pentagon “civil disturbance” plans such as Cable Splicer and Garden Plot, both of which are continuously updated, our “change” President will forge ahead and invest the permanent National Security bureaucracy with unprecedented power.
Under color of the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act, an unsavory piece of Bushist legislative detritus, “The President shall establish a bipartisan Council of Governors to advise the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the White House Homeland Security Council on matters related to the National Guard and civil support missions.”
The toothless Council, whose Executive Director will be designated by the Secretary of Defense no less, “shall meet at the call of the Secretary of Defense or the Co-Chairs of the Council.”
Will such a Council have veto power over administration deliberations? Hardly. They are relegated “to exchange views, information, or advice with the Secretary of Defense; the Secretary of Homeland Security” and “the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism.”
Additional entities covered by the EO with whom the Governors Council will “exchange views” include, “the Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement; the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Americas’ Security Affairs; the Commander, United States Northern Command; the Chief, National Guard Bureau; the Commandant of the Coast Guard; and other appropriate officials of the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense, and appropriate officials of other executive departments or agencies as may be designated by the Secretary of Defense or the Secretary of Homeland Security.”
In other words, right from the get-go, the Council will serve as civilian cover for political decisions made by the Executive Branch and the security apparat. EO 13528 continues, “Such views, information, or advice shall concern: (a) matters involving the National Guard of the various States; (b) homeland defense; (c) civil support; (d) synchronization and integration of State and Federal military activities in the United States; and (e) other matters of mutual interest pertaining to National Guard, homeland defense, and civil support activities.”
When news first broke last summer of Obama’s proposal to expand the military’s authority to respond to domestic disasters, it was opposed by the National Governors Association (NGA).
Congressional Quarterly reported that a letter sent on behalf of the NGA opposed creation of the Council on grounds that it “would invite confusion on critical command and control issues, complicate interagency planning, establish stove-piped response efforts, and interfere with governors’ constitutional responsibilities to ensure the safety and security of their citizens,” Govs. Jim Douglas, R-Vt., and Joe Manchin III, D-W.Va., wrote.
According to their August letter to Paul N. Stockton, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Americas’ Security Affairs, Douglas and Manchin III argued that “without assigning a governor tactical control” of military forces during a natural disaster such as a flood or earthquake, or an unnatural disaster such as a terrorist attack or other mass casualty event, the “strong potential exists for confusion in mission, execution and the dilution of governors’ control over situations with which they are more familiar and better capable of handling than a federal military commander.”
With slim prospects of congressional authorization for the scheme, in fact the 2008 language was removed from subsequent Defense spending legislation, other means were required. Playing bureaucratic hardball with the governors, this has now been accomplished by presidential fiat, further eroding clear constitutional limits on Executive Branch power.
These maneuvers as I have previously written, have very little to do with responding to a catastrophic emergency. Indeed, EO 13528 is only the latest iteration of plans to expand the National Security State’s writ and as such, have everything to do with decades-old Continuity of Government (COG) programs kept secret from Congress and the American people.
Derided by neocons, neoliberals and other corporatists as a quaint backwater for “conspiracy theorists” railing against “FEMA concentration camps,” Continuity of Government, and the nexus of “civil support” programs that have proliferated like noxious weeds are no laughing matter.
Indeed, even members of Congress are considered “unauthorized parties” denied access “to information on COG plans, procedures, capabilities and facilities,” according to a Pentagon document published by the whistleblowing web site Wikileaks, as are the classified annexes of National Security Presidential Directive 51 and Homeland Security Presidential Directive 20 (NSPD 51/HSPD 20). In a new twist on administration promises of transparency and open government, even the redacted version of these documents have been removed from the White House web site.
As Antifascist Calling previously reported (see: “Vigilant Shield 09: A Cover for Illegal Domestic Operations?“), the Congressional Research Service issued a 46-pagereport in 2008 that provided details on the COG-related National Exercise Program, a “civil support” operation that war games various disaster scenarios.
Among other things, the document outlines the serious domestic implications of military participation in national emergency preparedness drills. CRS researchers pointed to the Reagan-era Executive Order 12656 (EO 12656) that “directs FEMA to coordinate the planning, conduct, and evaluation of national security emergency exercises.” EO 12656 defines a national security emergency as “as any occurrence, including natural disaster, military attack, technological emergency, or other emergency that seriously degrades or seriously threatens the national security of the United States.”
Such programs, greatly expanded by the Bush-era Homeland Security Presidential Directive 8 (HSPD-8), also removed from the White House web site, established “a national program and a multi-year planning system to conduct homeland security preparedness-related exercises.” CRS avers, “The program is to be carried out in collaboration with state and local governments and private sector entities.”
The Defense Department’s role during such emergencies were intended to focus “principally on domestic incident management, either for terrorism or non terrorist catastrophic events.” DoD would play a “significant role” in the overall response. Such murky definitions cover a lot of ground and are ripe with a potential for abuse by unscrupulous securocrats and their corporate partners.
The primary DoD entity responsible for “civil support,” a focus of Obama’s EO is USNORTHCOM and its active combat component, U.S. Army North. However, as with almost everything relating to COG and current plans under EO 13528 that propose to “synchronize and integrate State and Federal military activities,” USNORTHCOM’s role is shrouded in secrecy.
As researcher Peter Dale Scott revealed in 2008, when Congressman Peter DeFazio, Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson and Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Christopher Carney sought access to classified COG annexes, their request was denied by the White House. Scott wrote: “DeFazio’s inability to get access to the NSPD Annexes is less than reassuring. If members of the Homeland Security Committee cannot enforce their right to read secret plans of the Executive Branch, then the systems of checks and balances established by the U.S. Constitution would seem to be failing.”
One hammer blow followed another. In 2008, Army Times reported, that the “3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team [BCT] has spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle, helping restore essential services and escorting supply convoys. Now they’re training for the same mission–with a twist–at home.”
Analyst Michel Chossudovsky commented, “What is significant in this redeployment of a US infantry unit is the presumption that North America could, in the case of a national emergency, constitute a ‘war theater’ thereby justifying the deployment of combat units.” According to Chossudovsky, “The new skills to be imparted consist in training 1st BCT in repressing civil unrest, a task normally assumed by civilian law enforcement.”
“It is noteworthy, the World Socialist Web Site commented, “that the deployment of US combat troops ‘as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters’ … coincides with the eruption of the greatest economic emergency and financial disaster since the Great Depression of the 1930s.”
“Justified as a response to terrorist threats,” socialist critic Bill Van Auken averred, “the real source of the growing preparations for the use of US military force within America’s borders lies not in the events of September 11, 2001 or the danger that they will be repeated. Rather, the domestic mobilization of the armed forces is a response by the US ruling establishment to the growing threat to political stability.”
Since USNORTHCOM’s deployment of a combat brigade on U.S. soil, the capitalist crisis has deepened and intensified. With unemployment at a post-war high and the perilous economic and social conditions of the working class growing grimmer by the day, EO 13258 is a practical demonstration of ruling class consensus when it comes to undermining the democratic rights of the American people.
After all, where the defense of wealth and privileges are concerned corporate thugs and war criminals have no friends, only interests…
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: 1st amendment, army, Barack Obama, catatrophic event, civil liberties, civil rights, Civilian Security Force, DHS, Dictatorship, Dissent, DoD, domestic terror, domestic terrorism, Economic Collapse, Economy, Empire, enemy combatant, Executive Order, Fascism, free speech, Great Depression, Homeland Security, HR 6166, Martial Law, Military, Military Industrial Complex, national collapse, national guard, Nazi, New World Order, North American Union, NORTHCOM, NWO, obama, obama deception, Oppression, Police State, Posse Comitatus, stasi, stasi tactics, Troops, u.s. constitution, u.s. economy, urban warfare, War On Terror, White House | Tags: John Warner National Defense Authorization Act, universal civil defense training
Obama Executive Order Stokes Martial Law Fears
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
January 12, 2010
An Obama executive order that creates a council of state governors who will work with the feds to expand military involvement in domestic security has stoked fears that the administration is stepping up preparations for martial law.
The order, which is entitled Establishment of the Council of Governors (PDF), creates a body of ten state governors directly appointed by Obama who will work with the federal government to help advance the “synchronization and integration of State and Federal military activities in the United States”.
The governors will liaise with officials from Northcom, Homeland Security, the National Guard as well as DoD officials from the Pentagon “in order to strengthen further the partnership between the Federal Government and State governments,” according to the executive order.
In October 2008, Northcom, a Unified Combatant Command of the United States military based out of Peterson AFB, Colorado Springs, was assigned the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team returning from Iraq. An alarming September 8 Army Times report which was later denied after it sparked controversy stated that the troops would be used by Northcom to deal with “civil unrest and crowd control” in the aftermath of a national emergency.
The Obama executive order states that governors will help advise the feds on National Guard, homeland defense, and civil support activities.
The fact that the order further blurs the lines between state and federal power, as well as greasing the skids for more military involvement in domestic affairs has stoked fears that Obama may be laying the groundwork for his promised “national civilian security force”.
Conservatives and libertarians responded to the announcement by expressing their suspicion that Obama is preparing to give governors their marching orders in targeting “anti-government” types that have long been characterized as a terrorist threat by the feds in numerous reports stretching back over a decade.
“There is a definite purpose to this,” wrote one commenter on the popular Free Republic website, “The initial steps toward a domestic “Civilian Security Force” in each state, as called for by the fascisti during the campaign. It will be coordinated at the state level, under the authority of DHS and DoD and assorted agencies. The provision will be made for it to be “federalized” in an emergency, as is the National Guard.”
“This is a concrete step toward eliminating the independent authority and dissolving the sovereignty of the several States. It lays the groundwork for the end of the United States as a Republic,” she adds.
Others warn that Obama could be preparing to cancel elections under the justification of a national emergency, a fear that was often expressed when Bush was in office but one that never materialized.
However, the executive order clearly represents another assault on Posse Comitatus, the 1878 law that bars the military from exercising domestic police powers, which was temporarily annulled by the 2006 John Warner National Defense Authorization Act before parts of it were later repealed.
Filed under: airstrikes, alqaeda, Barack Obama, Military, Military Industrial Complex, military strike, nation building, obama, occupation, Troops, u.s. soldiers, War On Terror, yemen
U.S. Troops in Yemen Will Strengthen al-Qaeda
The Majlis
January 7, 2010
 Members of Yemen’s anti-terrorism force take part in a training session on the outskirts of Sanaa on January 9. Yemen’s president Ali Abdullah Saleh says he is open to dialogue with Al-Qaeda militants, as a top official warned that dozens of foreign jihadists are grouping in a remote part of the impoverished country. |
Rashad al-Alimi, Yemen’s deputy prime minister for security, warned today against direct U.S. intervention in his country, saying (عربي) it would “strengthen al-Qaeda.”
“We cannot accept any foreign troops on Yemeni territory,” he told a group of reporters in Sana’a.
Alimi’s remarks follow similar comments yesterday by Abu Bakr al-Qirbi, the country’s foreign minister, who told the Associated Press “there is a lot of sensitivity about foreign troops coming to Yemeni territory.” Qirbi cited the American experience in Afghanistan and Iraq to argue that “direct intervention complicates things.”
There’s a certain amount of parsing required when reading statements like this. Yemeni officials have always been reluctant to publicly discuss American involvement in their country: In 2002, for example, President Ali Abdullah Saleh was furious that the U.S. revealed it was behind the cruise missile strike that killed Abu Ali al-Harithi.
This sensitivity is motivated partly by fear of public outrage, and partly by the government’s desire to be seen as competent and able to provide its own security.
So these comments by Qirbi and Alimi are public statements intended for public consumption. Yemeni officials will almost certainly sign off on further cruise missile attacks or drone strikes, and they might also approve limited incursions by U.S. Special Forces, as long as the government retains a degree of deniability.
Speaking of “able to provide its own security,” the new offensive against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is proceeding as expected. The Yemeni government claims to have captured Mohammed al-Hanq, the AQAP “commander” behind recent threats against the U.S. and U.K. embassies in Sana’a. Hanq, and two other suspects, were reportedly wounded earlier this week and arrested at a hospital north of the capital.
Hanq was reportedly captured yesterday; Yemeni news sources don’t have any updates on the fighting today.
Filed under: Afghanistan, alqaeda, Barack Obama, Iraq, Military, Military Industrial Complex, mutallab, nation building, obama, obamas war, occupation, Troops, u.s. soldiers, War On Terror, yemen | Tags: bukar al-Qirbi, Rashad al-Alimi
Yemen tells U.S. soldiers to keep out
The Independent
January 8, 2010
Yemen insisted yesterday that it could handle its own mounting security challenges without any direct foreign intervention, pointedly warning Washington to learn the lessons from Iraq and Afghanistan.
While welcoming US intelligence and technological co-operation, the Deputy Prime Minister for Defence and Security, Rashad al-Alimi, told a crowded news conference in the capital, Sana’a, that the government did not want foreign troops on its soil.
That message was reinforced by Foreign Minister Abukar al-Qirbi, who told CNN that fighting militants was “the priority and the responsibility of our security forces and the army”.
On the possibility of direct US military intervention, he said: “No, I don’t think we will accept that. I think the US as well have learned from Afghanistan and Iraq and other places that direct intervention can be self-defeating.”
Filed under: Afghanistan, army, Barack Obama, Dictatorship, Empire, fallen soldiers, McChrystal, Military, military casualties, Military Industrial Complex, nation building, NATO, obama, obama deception, obama surge, obamas war, occupation, Stanley McChrystal, surge, Taliban, Troops, u.s. soldiers, War On Terror | Tags: General Barry McCaffrey, McCaffrey
US forces in Afghanistan ‘should expect up to 500 casualties a month’
Times Online
January 7, 2010
US forces in Afghanistan should brace themselves for up to 500 casualties a month this year, a senior retired American general has warned.
The forecast comes from General Barry McCaffrey, formerly the most decorated general in the US Army, who has conducted field assessments of the US military performance in Afghanistan at the request of the US military since 2003.
His assessment projects that US forces can expect to lose between 300 and 500 soldiers a month, either killed or wounded, this year, rising to a peak during the summer months. US military casualties during 2009 were 305 killed and 2,102 injured up to December 20. More than half of those injured have not been able to return to service.
Casualties in Afghanistan tend to peak during the summer “fighting season” between June and October and to dip, particularly in mountainous areas, during the winter.
The anticipated increase would produce around 3,000 American casualties this year, and a total for Western forces in Afghanistan of around 5,000 killed and wounded — the equivalent of seven infantry battalions.
British forces suffered 108 deaths last year, and 464 wounded in action.
General McCaffrey is an adjunct professor at the US Military Academy at West Point. While his assessment is not a government document, it was conducted at the request of General David Petraeus, the commander of US Central Command, and General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan, and included comprehensive access to senior Western military officials and diplomats, including British officials.
He suggests that the Taleban deserve considerable respect for their tenacity and military capability. “We must guard against arrogance, and US and allied ground combat forces”, he warns, face “very clever fighters” with “ferocious combat capabilities”.
He cites in particular two occasions when small American bases were all but overrun by “battalion-size” Taleban units during 2009: “Only the incredible small unit leadership, fighting skill, and valour of these two small US army units — which suffered very high casualties at [Combat Outpost] Wanat and COP Keating — prevented humiliating defeat.”
Despite the stated desire of the Obama Administration to achieve a discernible improvement in Afghanistan within 18 months, and to begin a military drawdown after that time, General McCaffrey concludes: “We are unlikely to achieve our political and military goals in 18 months. This will inevitably become a three to ten-year strategy to build a viable Afghan state with their own security force that can allow us to withdraw.
“It may well cost us an additional $300 billion, and we are likely to suffer thousands more US casualties.”
A promised “US civilian surge” will not materialise, he believes: “Afghanistan over the next two to three years will be simply too dangerous for most civil agencies.”
He adds that the war can be expected to cost the US Government more than $9 billion (£5.6 billion) a month during the summer of 2010. The cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is currently $377 million a day, compared with a constant-dollar equivalent of $622 million a day for the Second World War.
However, his assessment is that the mission’s goals remain possible: “We can achieve our strategic purpose with determined leadership and American treasure and blood.
“We now have the most effective and courageous military forces in our nation’s history committed to this campaign … Our focus must now not be on an exit strategy — but effective execution of the political, economic and military measures required to achieve our purpose.”
Filed under: army, Barack Obama, brainwashing, Colonialism, Dictatorship, Empire, Fascism, Hitler, indoctrination, Military, nation building, national guard, Nazi, oath keepers, obama, obamas war, occupation, Police State, Propaganda, Troops, u.s. constitution, u.s. soldiers, veterans | Tags: Oath of Enlistment, Soldier’s Creed
National Guard ad revives Nazi oath to Hitler: “Always place mission first,” not US Constitution
Examiner
January 4, 2010
In 2003, the US Army adapted the “Soldier’s Creed” to program soldiers to shift their Oath of Enlistment from “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” to the heel-clicking, non-thinking, dictator-obeying, “I will always place the mission first.
This directly states that the FIRST duty of an American soldier is to achieve the mission dictated by military leadership, NOT the defense of the US Constitution. Brain-washing soldiers to place the mission first, that is, “just follow orders” given by der Fuehrer (“the leader” in German) rather than being responsible for obeying the Constitution and laws of war dramatizes the US shift into fascism.
This fascist propaganda is highlighted in the National Guard’s new 2-minute ad playing in movie theaters, shown below.
Nazi German soldiers had such an oath:
“I swear by God this sacred oath that I shall render unconditional obedience to Adolf Hitler, the Führer of the German Reich, supreme commander of the armed forces, and that I shall at all times be prepared, as a brave soldier, to give my life for this oath.”
Another way to say this: “I will always place the mission first, as dictated by the Commander-in-Chief, Adolf Hitler.”
The US Soldier’s Creed states the Army Values; its first component is “loyalty” to the US Constitution. But the creed and the new commercial favors “place the mission first” in its communication rather than “protect and defend the US Constitution.” And again, stating the “mission” dictated by the leader is first rather than the US Constitution is revealing.
I am an American Soldier.
I am a Warrior and a member of a team.
I serve the people of the United States, and live the Army Values.
I will always place the mission first.
I will never accept defeat.
I will never quit.
I will never leave a fallen comrade.
I am disciplined, physically and mentally tough, trained and proficient in my warrior tasks and drills.
I always maintain my arms, my equipment and myself.
I am an expert and I am a professional.
I stand ready to deploy, engage, and destroy, the enemies of the United States of America in close combat.
I am a guardian of freedom and the American way of life.
I am an American Soldier.
Another way to say this: “I will always place the mission first, as dictated by the Commander-in-Chief, President (blank).”
“I will always place the mission first, as dictated by the Commander-in-Chief, Adolf Hitler.”
“I will always place the mission first, as dictated by the Commander-in-Chief, President X.”
Beyond any reasonable doubt, current US wars are unlawful. Stop and research this if you are unclear on the simple rules of lawful war and why the US is in obvious violation. You cannot argue you are a responsible citizen if you do not understand these laws that govern trillions of our long-term tax dollars and so dramatically affect millions of lives.
US wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, and threats for war with Iran are as unlawful as a football middle linebacker kicking the opponent’s center in the head as he touches the ball, claiming it a fumble, and taking possession. What we have in our country is political “leaders” and corporate media reporting this violation as, “The enemy initiated an offensive maneuver that intelligence confirmed was going to be illegal and cause injury. Our defensive forces delivered a blow that pre-emptively stopped their attack. This prevented certain harm from their clear intent to violate their obligation under law.” That is, what we get is propaganda and lies of omission that disinform the public and our troops in Orwellian magnitude.
Showcasing “always place the mission first” in the Soldier’s Creed has a clear purpose: US troops should obey their American Fuehrer. The Oath Keepers is a principle organization to reorientate our current soldiers, veterans, and members of government, law enforcement, and all others with oaths to honor their oath to the US Constitution.
Filed under: 9/11 Truth, Afghanistan, Airport Security, airstrikes, Alex Jones, alqaeda, amsterdam, aqap, aristocrats, Barack Obama, bilderberg, bin laden, CIA, Colonialism, Cult Programming, DHS, Dictatorship, Empire, fake alqaeda, fake terror threat, fake terrorists, False Flag, FBI, Flight 253, global elite, gordon brown, Homeland Security, inside job, IntelCenter, internationalist, Iraq, islamist, kosovo, Kurt Haskell, Military, Military Industrial Complex, military strike, Mossad, Muslim Brotherhood, mutallab, nasser, nation building, NATO, obama, obama deception, obamas war, occupation, Oil, oligarchy, PETN bomb, plane bomber, resource war, ruling class, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, staged terrorist attack, State Sponsored Terrorism, terror watch list, terrorist patsy, Troops, truth movement, Uncategorized, War On Terror, war spending, webster tarpley, White House, yemen, zawahiri | Tags: christmas bomber, crotch bomber, flight 253 mystery, Nassir al-Wahishi, Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab
Obama Blames al-Qaeda for Christmas False Flag, Sets Stage for Yemen Attack
Kurt Nimmo
Prison Planet.com
January 3, 2010
On Saturday, Obama said the Christmas day non-attack over Detroit was the work of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the latest incarnation of the perennial boogieman used by government to frighten people into accepting foreign invasions and occupations and an ever-growing police state grid at home.
“We know that [Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab] traveled to Yemen, a country grappling with crushing poverty and deadly insurgencies. It appears that he joined an affiliate of al Qaeda, and that this group — Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula — trained him, equipped him with those explosives and directed him to attack that plane headed for America,” Obama said in his address to the nation.
Nassir al-Wahishi is the new Osama bin Laden. He was appointed by Ayman al-Zawahiri to run AQAP in Yemen. Al-Zawahiri is a documented intelligence asset. His brother Zaiman al-Zawahiri fought for the CIA in Kosovo and ran terrorist camps under NATO protection in the U.S. zone in Kosovo.
Ayman, according to January 2000 U.S. Congressional testimony, was granted U.S. residence by the Immigration and Naturalization Service. This is almost impossible for many legitimate immigrants to obtain but is often granted to CIA assets that need to get in and out of the country as they perform their assignments.
Ayman al-Zawahiri founded the Egyptian Islamic Jihad with the help of the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization long ago penterated and comprmised by British intelligence. The CIA funneled support to the Muslim Brotherhood in an effort to overthrow Egyptian president Gamal Abddul Nasser, considered the father of Arab nationalism.
“The real Muslim Brothers are those whose hands are never dirtied with the business of killing and burning,” Robert Dreyfuss summarized in 1980. “They are the secretive bankers and financiers who stand behind the curtain, the members of the old Arab, Turkish, or Persian families whose genealogy places them in the oligarchical elite, with smooth business and intelligence associations to the European black nobility (Bilderberg) and, especially, to the British oligarchy.”
The Islamist movement and in particular the violent Jihadist movement are creations of the elite and are used for political purposes contrary to those declared by their wild-eyed adherents who are generally patsies and useful idiots.
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is but the latest assemblage of fanatics to be used by the elite to further their agenda of global domination and the mass murder and suffering it requires.
If Nassir al-Wahishi is connected to Ayman al-Zawahiri, it is a pretty safe bet to say he is a tool of the CIA as well. Nassir al-Wahishi also had a close relationship to the Big Kahuna of CIA operatives, the late Osama bin Laden.
“This is not the first time this group has targeted us,” Obama continued in his weekend address. “In recent years, they have bombed Yemeni government facilities and Western hotels, restaurants and embassies — including our embassy in 2008, killing one American. So, as president, I’ve made it a priority to strengthen our partnership with the Yemeni government-training and equipping their security forces, sharing intelligence and working with them to strike al-Qaeda terrorists.”
Obama’s statement came one day after Britain’s PM Gordon Brown called an “emergency summit” on “extremism” in Yemen. “Gordon Brown has invited key international partners to a high-level meeting in order to discuss how best to counter radicalization in Yemen,” a statement issued by Downing Street announced. “The prime minister will host the event on 28 January in London.”
“Yemen’s problems are many, and some are already spreading beyond its borders,” the establishment declares from the pages of The Washington Post. “Security and stability are deteriorating. The population is growing rapidly. The economy is collapsing. There are few good options today; things will look worse tomorrow. Immediate and sustained international attention is needed to at least lessen the impact of some problems.”
“While military and counterterrorism operations are critical, long-term development assistance is also necessary.”
Iranian Press TV comments: “Concerns are growing that the same fate as those of Afghanistan and Iraq, suffering violence despite years of foreign military presence, might await Yemen’s Muslim nation.”
Obama Administration Prepares Public Opinion for Attack on Yemen
globalresearch.ca
January 3, 2010
Five days after the unsuccessful attempt by a Nigerian student to set off a bomb aboard a Detroit-bound passenger jet, US military and intelligence officials are said to be preparing expanded military action against targets in Yemen, the Arab country where the student allegedly received terrorist training and was equipped with an explosive device.
A series of US media reports suggest that new US-backed military attacks inside Yemen are imminent. Citing “two senior US officials,” CNN reported: “The US and Yemen are now looking at fresh targets for a potential retaliation strike.”
The network said the officials “both stressed the effort is aimed at being ready with options for the White House if President Obama orders a retaliatory strike.” CNN continued: “The effort is to see whether targets can be specifically linked to the airliner incident and its planning. US special operations forces and intelligence agencies, and their Yemeni counterparts, are working to identify potential Al Qaeda targets in Yemen, one of the officials said.”
The network said the Obama administration and the long-time Yemeni dictator, Field Marshal Ali Abdullah Saleh, had reached an agreement to allow the US to fly cruise missiles, fighter jets and armed drones, used for remote-control assassinations, in Yemeni airspace. Talks were still ongoing on whether Saleh will give permission for the entry of US helicopter-borne Special Forces.
The report comes after a series of statements by top administration officials, including Obama himself, pledging that “all elements of US power” will be used in response to the failed attack on Northwest Flight 253. The White House has been under heavy fire from its Republican opponents over the evident security failure, and a military action would serve to divert public attention from the ongoing revelations of how the CIA and other US agencies ignored warnings about the impending attack.
Yemen’s foreign minister, Abu Bakr al Qirbi, told the BBC that his country was seeking stepped up military aid, presumably as part of a package deal—in effect, a bribe for allowing the country’s territory to be turned into a battlefield for US commandos.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the Obama administration was discussing nearly tripling its military and counterterrorism aid to Yemen in the coming year. US aid jumped from $4.6 million in 2006 to $67 million this year, and would rise to as much as $190 million in 2010, according to “a senior military official.
Reuters, citing unnamed “defense and counterterrorism officials,” reported that “the Obama administration was exploring ways to accelerate and expand US assistance to Yemeni forces to root out the Al Qaeda leadership in the country, while keeping the role of the US military and intelligence agencies as behind the scenes as possible.”
The news agency reported a clash between Yemeni security forces and Al Qaeda fighters in the western Hudaydah province, around the town of Deir Jaber.
The Los Angeles Times cited a Yemeni terrorism expert as the source of an estimate that Al Qaeda has “as many as 2,000 militants and sympathizers exploiting the country’s economic and political chaos to create a base for jihad at the edge of the Persian Gulf.” This is ten times more than other media estimates of the number of such militants in Yemen, and 20 times the number of Al Qaeda forces said by US officials to be in Afghanistan now.
The Times report is part of an effort by the US media to portray Yemen as a lawless hotbed of terrorism and a major threat to the United States, in order to justify in advance an American attack, or even a full-scale invasion.
It was followed by an even more apocalyptic comment by “terrorism expert” Steven Emerson, interviewed Wednesday morning on CBS’ “Early Show.” He said that while the Pakistan-Afghanistan border was still “number one” for terrorist activity, the area surrounding the Gulf of Aden, including Yemen and Somalia, was “fast coming up the ladder.”
- “Yemen possibly could surpass Pakistan in the next year, given the terrorist trajectory for providing a haven for Al Qaeda,” he claimed. In light of the fact that the Obama administration is mobilizing 100,000 American troops as well as hundreds of warplanes and drones for combat along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, such a comparison is extremely ominous.
Emerson took particular note of “literally scores of American Muslim students studying and being trained in Yemen to this day…. There’s a pool of potential terrorists out there that have Western passports that can board planes without visas.”
The clear goal of such far-fetched claims is to create a pogrom atmosphere directed against all young American Muslims, particularly those of Arab or East African origin.
These comments were made one day after press reports of an alleged abortive attempt by a Somali man equipped with explosive powder and a syringe to board a passenger jet in Mogadishu, the capital city. This is the same modus operandi as that of the Nigerian man, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, aboard Northwest Flight 253 on Christmas Day. The Somali was arrested by African peacekeeping troops on November 13 and never succeeded in getting on the plane.
The Washington Post, the leading newspaper in the US capital, published an editorial Wednesday noting that in the wake of the Christmas Day bombing attempt, allegedly originating in Yemen, “some are asking whether the United States should launch a military offensive in that impoverished Arabian nation.” The editorial continued: “The answer, of course, is that it already has.”
Citing a series of raids conducted by Yemeni and US forces, the Post praised the Obama administration for having “significantly stepped up US counterterrorism operations in Yemen,” including the dispatch of CIA and Special Forces personnel. But it warned: “Still, Yemen’s steady slide toward failed-state status in recent years means that it, like nearby Somalia, will probably demand concerted and multifaceted US engagement for years to come. More than Special Forces and missile strikes are needed.”
While declaring that “US ground troops are not needed, for now, in Yemen or Somalia,” the newspaper suggested that such forces may well be required in the future. It declared, “in those countries, as in Afghanistan, a strategy limited to counterterrorism will not eliminate the threat.”
Once again, as in the case of Afghanistan and Iraq, American imperialism is preparing a military bloodbath in an impoverished country, using a terrorist attack—in this case a failed attempt—as the pretext. According to reports by the UN and Yemeni government statistics, some 35 percent of the adult population of the country is unemployed. Yemen is the poorest of the Arab countries, has exhausted its very limited oil export capacity, and now faces severe water shortages.
But Yemen possesses, like Afghanistan and Iraq, a highly strategic geographic location, adjacent to Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, and the Red Sea, controlling access to the Suez Canal. Yemen also borders on the Gulf of Aden, the shipping route for much of the oil leaving the Persian Gulf.
US military forces are already deployed across the strait of Bab el Mandeb in Djibouti, the former French Somaliland, which remains a virtual French colony. Djibouti hosts thousands of French and US troops who could quickly move into Yemen if so ordered by Paris and Washington. A large US and NATO war fleet patrols shipping lanes through the Gulf of Aden and south along the Indian Ocean coast of Somalia.
Summary of Facts: Flight 253 Event
Examiner
January 2, 2009
The US government who lied for wars in other resource-rich countries are lying about what happened on Delta Flight 253 with an alleged underwear/crotch bomber. Below is a summary of facts reported at this time, along with a 4-minute news interview from Webster Tarpley, followed by an extensive interview of Mr. Tarpley by Alex Jones.:
Before the flight to the US:
- * Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab traveled to Yemen to meet with “terrorists.” However, his mother also lives in Yemen, which could also explain the visit.
* The alleged terrorists in Yemen had been in Guantanamo Prison. They were released without trial by the Bush Administration even though they were reported as among the most dangerous detainees.
* The government of Yemen reports that Islamic terrorists there have been arrested who have proven ties to Israeli intelligence.
* Abdulmutallab’s father, though we are told is a retired “Nigerian banker,” ran their defense industry in close cooperation with Israeli Intelligence (Mossad).
* Abdulmutallab’s father warned US embassy officials of his son’s dangerous behavior; this is corroborated with other US intelligence of warning.
* Abdulmutallab’s visa to the US was never withdrawn, though he was on a “terrorist watchlist.” This would make his trip impossible unless protocol was ignored.
* Flying from Nigeria, Abdulmutallab entered the Netherlands without passing through customs; impossible to do without assistance from an intelligence agency.
* At the Amsterdam airport, Abdulmutallab was assisted by a man appearing to be Indian, who claimed Abdulmutallab was a Sudanese refugee with no passport (he would not have been allowed to enter the EU without a passport through customs). This man and whoever authorized boarding without a passport are huge stories we haven’t heard. Where is the airport videos of this?
* Airport security in Amsterdam is contracted to an Israeli company with the most sophisticated technologies who had developed the concept of security profiling.
During the flight to the US:
- * Witnesses reported a man standing ten rows behind Abdulmutallab stand and use his camcorder to film the incident before it began. This important testimony was not pursued to discover the identity and role of this seemingly complicit person.
* Witnesses report Abdulmutallab was oddly vacant and calm; typical of a programmed
“Manchurian Candidate.” This might explain the behavior of the person filming: a “handler” who gave the code for Abdulmutallab to perform an act. Manchurian Candidates are now acknowledged historical fact. Research this if you are unfamiliar with the disclosed history.
After the flight:
- *Witness on flight 253, attorney Kurt Haskell, reports that there was another suspect handcuffed at the airport after landing that the FBI repeatedly lies and changes their story in explaining. Haskell says the detained passengers were told this man was identified by a bomb-sniffing dog as having explosives in his luggage.
* The Detroit News confirms the FBI has changed their story four times.
* 50 grams of PETN positioned on a seat and cushioned underneath a passenger are tested and would not cause significant damage to the plane.
* The US and UK government are using this incident to justify attack and possible invasion of Yemen.
* We’re reminded that yes, Yemen has oil and natural gas reserves worth stealing.
Filed under: Air Force, Dictatorship, Empire, global elite, human rights, Iraq, IVAW, Marines, Military, Military Industrial Complex, nation building, occupation, Oppression, Troops, u.s. soldiers, veterans, War On Terror
U.S Soldiers Are Waking Up!
Filed under: Afghanistan, civilian casualties, Genocide, IEDS, Jalalabad, Military, Military Industrial Complex, nation building, NATO, occupation, Raid, State Sponsored Terrorism, Troops, war crime, War Crimes, War On Terror
U.S. Troops Accused of Executing 10 Afghan Civilians During Night Raid
Afghans burn Obama effigy over civilian deaths
The Times
December 30, 2009
Afghan investigators today accused US-led troops of dragging ten civilians from their beds and shooting them dead during a night raid.
Officials said that eight children and teenagers were among the dead and all but one of the victims were from the same family.
The reports led to angry protests in Kabul and Jalalabad, with children as young as 10 chanting “Death to America” and demanding foreign forces leave Afghanistan.
President Karzai sent a team of investigators to Narang district, in Kunar province, after reports emerged of a massacre. “The delegation concluded that a unit of international forces descended from a plane on Sunday night into Ghazi Khan village in Narang district of the eastern province of Kunar and took ten people from three homes, eight of them school students in grades six, nine and 10, one of them a guest, the rest from the same family, and shot them dead,” a statement on President Karzai’s website said.
Asked if the people were shot outside their homes, the President’s spokesman Waheed Omar said: “That is our understanding.”
Local elders confirmed that ten people were killed, but their accounts of raid differed.
“Three of the children were killed in their bedroom,” said a local elder Jan Mohammed. “The other five had their hands bound, then they were killed.”
According to the presidential statement, local US forces were “unaware of the incident”.
Investigators spoke to the headmaster of the local school who confirmed that all the children – aged 11 to 17 – were his students.
A spokesman for the US-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) was not immediately available for comment on the allegations.
A senior Western military official said that US Special Forces had been conducting operations in the area, separately from Isaf.
Military officials insisted the dead were all part of a cell responsible for manufacturing improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
“This was a joint operation that was conducted against an IED cell that Afghan and US officials had been developing information against for some time,” a senior Nato source said.
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: 2-party system, Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Colonialism, contracting, contractors, DEBT, deception, DoD, ductatorship, Economy, Empire, endless war, Iraq, left right paradigm, middle class, Military, Military Industrial Complex, nation building, obama, obama deception, obama surge, obamas war, occupation, private contractors, soldiers, surge, Taxpayers, Troops, US Economy, War On Terror
U.S. pays $57,077 a minute in Afghanistan
Asia Times
December 19, 2009
The sum of US$57,077.60. That’s what the United States is paying per minute. Keep that in mind – just for a minute or so.
After all, the surge is already on. By the end of December, the first 1,500 of 30,000 additional US troops will have landed in Afghanistan, a nation roughly the size of Texas, ranked by the United Nations as second-worst in the world in terms of human development.
Women and men from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, will be among the first to head out. It takes an estimated $1 million to send each of them surging into Afghanistan for one year. So a 30,000-person surge will be at least $30 billion, which brings us to that $57,077.60. That’s how much it will cost the US taxpayer, for one minute of that surge.
By the way, add up the yearly salary of one US Marine Corps soldier from Camp Lejeune with four years of service, throw in his or her housing allowance, additional pay for dependents, and bonus pay for hazardous duty, imminent danger, and family separation, and you’ll still be many thousands of dollars short of that single minute’s sum.
DOD: Obama’s Afghan Surge Will Rely Heavily On Private Contractors
TPM Muckraker
December 15, 2009
Private contractors will make up at least half of the total military workforce in Afghanistan going forward, according to Defense Department officials cited in a new congressional study.
As President Obama’s escalation of the war in Afghanistan unfolds, the number of contractors will likely jump by between 16,000 and 56,000, adding up to a total of 120,000-160,000, according to an updated study from the Congressional Research Service.
DOD officials who spoke with the study’s author said contractors would make up 50-55 percent of the total workforce — troops plus contractors — in the future. This would actually be a significant reduction from the last two years, when contractors have averaged 62 percent of the total.
As we’ve reported, many questions about the army of contractors, which outnumbers the size of the U.S. troop force, remain unanswered and underexamined. We don’t have up to date numbers on how much the United States spends on private contracts, and the DOD does not break down the services done by contractors in Afghanistan (it does for Iraq).
As of September 2009, contractors providing security, transportation, and logistical services numbered 104,100 in Afghanistan and 113,700 in Iraq, according to the military. Most of the contractors in Afghanistan are local nationals, according to the military.
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: 2-party system, Africa, africom, alqaeda, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, bush, bush = obama, Colonialism, Dictatorship, Empire, ethiopia, fake alqaeda, George Bush, left right paradigm, Military, Military Industrial Complex, nation building, obama, obama = bush, occupation, oligarchy, Somalia, Troops, War On Terror
Obama Moves Ahead With US African Command
Pambazuka News
December 17, 2009
Concerned over the supply of oil to the US and a supposed need to continue the global ‘War on Terror’, President Barack Obama has essentially maintained the militarised approach to Africa that was the hallmark of his immediate predecessors George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. The escalation of AFRICOM (United States African Command) activities underlines a troubling commitment to an approach based on might and dominance, one entirely at the expense of promoting sustainable economic development and democracy.
In his July 11, 2009 speech in Accra, Ghana, US President Barack Obama declared, ‘America has a responsibility to advance this vision, not just with words, but with support that strengthens African capacity. When there is genocide in Darfur or terrorists in Somalia, these are not simply African problems – they are global security challenges, and they demand a global response. That is why we stand ready to partner through diplomacy, technical assistance, and logistical support, and will stand behind efforts to hold war criminals accountable. Our Africa Command is focused not on establishing a foothold in the continent, but on confronting these common challenges to advance the security of America, Africa and the world.’
And yet all the available evidence demonstrates that he is determined to continue the expansion of US military activity on the continent initiated by President Bill Clinton in the late 1990s and dramatically escalated by President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2009. While many expected the Obama administration to adopt a security policy toward Africa that would be far less militaristic and unilateral than that pursued by his predecessor, the facts show that he is in fact essentially following the same policy that has guided US military involvement in Africa for more than a decade.
Filed under: alqaeda, brainwashing, CIA, Detainees, fake alqaeda, indoctrination, inside job, Iraq, Military, Military Industrial Complex, mujahideen, shiites, State Sponsored Terrorism, sunni, terrorist funding, terrorist recruiting, Troops, War On Terror | Tags: camp bucca
Terrorists Were Free to Teach Detainees in U.S. Jail
Filed under: Afghanistan, Barack Obama, CIA, Coup, fake alqaeda, Hamid Karzai', karzai, Military, Military Industrial Complex, nation building, NATO, obama, obama deception, obamas war, occupation, puppet government, Robert Gates, soldiers, Taliban, terrorist funding, Troops, u.s. soldiers, War On Terror
Afghan Puppet Government Wants US Troops Until 2024
NY Times
December 9, 2009
KABUL, Afghanistan — President Hamid Karzai said Tuesday that Afghanistan would not be able to pay for its own security until at least 2024, underscoring his government’s long-term financial dependence on the United States and NATO even as President Obama has pledged to begin withdrawing American troops in 2011.
Mr. Karzai spoke at a news conference here with Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, who did not put a timetable on the American and allied financial commitment but acknowledged that there was a “realism on our part that it will be some time before Afghanistan is able to sustain its security forces entirely on its own.”
The news conference came just hours after as many as a dozen people were killed during an allied raid in Laghman Province, Afghan officials said, prompting hundreds of villagers to march in protest.
noworldsystem.com 