Filed under: 2-party system, Afghanistan, alqaeda, army, Barack Obama, Britain, bush, bush = obama, bush surge, Colonialism, Dictatorship, Empire, George Bush, Hillary Clinton, Iraq, left right paradigm, Marines, McChrystal, middle east, Military, Military Industrial Complex, nation building, Neolibs, obama, obama = bush, obama deception, obama surge, occupation, oligarchy, rome, Stanley McChrystal, steny hoyer, surge, Taliban, Troops, USMC, war crime, War Crimes, War On Terror, warhawks, White House
Obama to Announce 45,000 Troop Surge in Afghanistan
Obama tops Bush in troop buildup
AntiWar.com
October 14, 2009
The Obama Administration has reportedly told the British government that it intends to announce an escalation of another 45,000 troops in Afghanistan, potentially as soon as next week.
The report comes despite claims that the Obama Administration is continuing to hold talks about the strategy, though this seems to be more based on the question of whether to emphasize the failed battle against the Taliban or focus what will soon be over 100,000 troops on fighting the roughly 100 al-Qaeda members reportedly in the nation.
Britain announced that it intends to send another 500 soldiers to Afghanistan to bolster its 9,000-strong force. The announcement reportedly came as a result of the US assurances, and despite the growing domestic opposition to the war.
Several Democrats, including House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, have expressed reservations about the massive escalation, particularly coming just seven months after the administration’s last escalation. Yet Rep. Hoyer urged fellow Democrats to go along with whatever President Obama decides.
Obama tops Bush in troop buildup
Bill Van Auken
WSWS
October 14, 2009
The combined US troop deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan have now reached a higher level than existed at any time under the presidency of George W. Bush. This surge past the record set by its predecessor marks another grim milestone in the Obama administration’s escalation of American militarism.
In addition to the 21,000 US soldiers and Marines that Obama ordered deployed to Afghanistan as part of the escalation he unveiled last March, another 13,000 “support” troops are being quietly sent to the country with no official announcement, the Washington Post reported Tuesday.
This stealth buildup is a replay of the methods used by the Bush administration in its Iraq surge, when it announced the deployment of an additional 20,000 combat troops while saying nothing about the 8,000 support troops sent with them.
In neither case was the failure to declare the full number an oversight. Obama, like Bush before him, recognizes that the military interventions he oversees are deeply unpopular with the majority of the American people.
According to the troop numbers provided by the Post, there are now 65,000 US troops in Afghanistan, with another 124,000 still in Iraq, for a total of 189,000 American military personnel waging two colonial-style wars and occupations. At the height of the Bush administration’s 2007 “surge” in Iraq, there were 26,000 US troops in Afghanistan and 160,000 in Iraq, for a total of 186,000.
There is every indication that the policies being pursued by the Obama White House will send these numbers significantly higher.
Over the weekend, military officials revealed to the media that the proposal for increased troop levels in Afghanistan submitted by the American commander there, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, included a high-end figure of 80,000—in addition to the 68,000 that are to be deployed by the end of this year.
The New York Times, echoing official sources, commented that this highest request was “highly unlikely to be considered seriously by the White House.” While this may well be true—for now—the leaking of the number serves a definite political purpose, making Obama’s ultimate agreement to a smaller surge—still involving tens of thousands of additional troops in Afghanistan—seem like a reasonable compromise between the White House and the Pentagon.
While visiting Britain this week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stressed the US commitment to continuing the Afghanistan war. “We are not changing our strategy, our strategy remains to achieve the goal of disrupting, dismantling and defeating Al Qaeda and its extremist allies, and denying them safe haven and the capacity to strike us here in London, or New York or anywhere else,” she said in a radio interview. “One should never doubt our commitment or our leadership, we intend to pursue the goal,” Clinton continued. “We will not rest until we do defeat Al Qaeda.”
Clinton’s remarks make clear that the Obama administration, while dropping the term “war on terrorism” coined by the Bush White House, continues to embrace the methods underlying this terminology—in particular, the attempt to terrorize the American people into accepting US wars of conquest and aggression.
The claim that 68,000 US troops—with tens of thousands more likely to follow—are in Afghanistan to fight Al Qaeda and prevent another 9/11 is a transparent pretext. Top US security and military officials have concurred that there are a grand total of approximately 100 individuals affiliated with Al Qaeda presently in Afghanistan, without any means of carrying out an attack on another country. If and when McChrystal’s request for additional troops is met, there will be 1,000 or more US soldiers and Marines in Afghanistan for every Al Qaeda member.
The target of the military escalation is not Al Qaeda, but rather the people of Afghanistan. Washington is attempting to suppress growing popular resistance to the occupation and is prepared to sacrifice the lives of untold numbers of Afghans, as well as those of hundreds if not thousands more US soldiers, to that end.
The defeat of “terrorism” is no more the strategic aim pursued by Washington in Afghanistan than it is in Iraq. US military might has been unleashed in both countries to assert the hegemony of American imperialism over Central Asia and the Persian Gulf, which are the two largest sources of the world’s energy supplies.
The potential costs of this venture are immense. A report prepared by the Pentagon last January describes the stated US goal of achieving a stable client state in Afghanistan as an operation that “will last, at a minimum, decades.” Appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday, Gen. Barry McCaffrey (ret.) was slightly more optimistic, saying that it would take “10 years of $5 billion a month,” in addition to major fighting.
In Iraq, meanwhile, there is no reason to believe that the stated deadline for pulling US troops out by 2012 will be met. On the contrary, the instability and continued resistance created by the American occupation and the destruction of Iraqi society will be used as a justification for continuing the occupation and asserting US control over the country’s oil fields.
And the threat that the US interventions will provoke new and potentially far bloodier conflicts is growing, as evidenced by the mounting crisis in Pakistan and increasing tensions throughout the Indian subcontinent flowing from the war in Afghanistan.
The debate that is now taking place in the Obama White House is over committing generations of young Americans to endless wars and occupations.
Under conditions in which resources are being denied for desperately needed jobs and basic social services, even more social wealth will be diverted to build up the US military.
Expanding the ranks of the Army is necessary if any significant escalation of the war in Afghanistan is to be sustained. The military is stretched to the breaking point by the two occupations. Even if Obama approves 40,000 more troops, nowhere near that number are immediately available.
While the American political establishment is no doubt counting on a double-digit unemployment rate driving jobless youth into the military, there is growing objective pressure for the reintroduction of conscription, with youth once again drafted to fight in colonial wars.
Millions of people voted for Barack Obama last November in the vain hope that his election would reverse the escalation of militarism initiated under Bush. Their votes, like the growing popular sentiment against the Afghan war, have been disregarded as the Obama administration continues this escalation in the interest of the financial oligarchy that it serves.
Filed under: Afghanistan, army, Barack Obama, Colonialism, Joe Scarborough, Marines, McChrystal, Military, Military Industrial Complex, MSNBC, nation building, NATO, obama, obama surge, occupation, Stanley McChrystal, surge, Troops, u.s. soldiers, USMC, War Crimes, War On Terror
Classified McChrystal Report: 500,000 Troops Will Be Required Over Five Years in Afghanistan
Tom Andrews
Global Research
September 25, 2009
Embedded in General Stanley McChrystal’s classified assessment of the war in Afghanistan is his conclusion that a successful counterinsurgency strategy will require 500,000 troops over five years.
This bombshell was dropped by NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Wednesday:
The numbers are really pretty horrifying. What they say, embedded in this report by McChrystal, is they would need 500,000 troops – boots on the ground – and five years to do the job. No one expects that the Afghan Army could step up to that. Are we gonna put even half that of U.S. troops there, and NATO forces? No way. [Morning Joe, September 23, 2009]
Filed under: 2-party system, 4th amendment, Barack Obama, bush = obama, CIA, civil liberties, civil rights, Congress, Detainee, Detainees, detention, DOJ, domeestic terrorism, domestic terror, Extraordinary Rendition, federal crimes, FISA, forced detention, George Bush, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, left right paradigm, mandatory detention, Marines, Military, military commissions act, Military Industrial Complex, neocons, Neolibs, NSA, obama, obama = bush, obama deception, Patriot Act, preventative detention, quantanamo, rendition, roving wiretaps, Senate, soldiers, Torture, Troops, US Constitution, USMC, war crime, War Crimes, War On Terror, warrantless search, warrantless wiretap
Obama will bypass Congress to detain suspects indefinitely
John Byrne
Raw Story
September 24, 2009
President Barack Obama has quietly decided to bypass Congress and allow the indefinite detention of terrorist suspects without charges.
The move, which was controversial when the idea was first floated in The Washington Post in May, has sparked serious concern among civil liberties advocates. Such a decision allows the president to unilaterally hold “combatants” without habeas corpus — a legal term literally meaning “you shall have the body” — which forces prosecutors to charge a suspect with a crime to justify the suspect’s detention.
Obama’s decision was buried on page A 23 of The New York Times’ New York edition on Thursday. It didn’t appear on that page in the national edition. (Meanwhile, the front page was graced with the story, “Richest Russian’s Newest Toy: An N.B.A. Team.”)
Rather than seek approval from Congress to hold some 50 Guantanamo detainees indefinitely, the administration has decided that it has the authority to hold the prisoners under broad-ranging legislation passed in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001. Former President George W. Bush frequently invoked this legislation as the justification for controversial legal actions — including the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program.
“The administration will continue to hold the detainees without bringing them to trial based on the power it says it has under the Congressional resolution passed after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, authorizing the president to use force against forces of Al Qaeda and the Taliban,” the Times‘ Peter Baker writes. “In concluding that it does not need specific permission from Congress to hold detainees without charges, the Obama administration is adopting one of the arguments advanced by the Bush administration in years of debates about detention policies.”
Constitutional scholar and Salon.com columnist Glenn Greenwald discussed the policy in a column in May. He warned that the ability for a president to “preventively” detain suspects could mushroom into broader, potentially abusive activity.
“It does not merely allow the U.S. Government to imprison people alleged to have committed Terrorist acts yet who are unable to be convicted in a civilian court proceeding,” Greenwald wrote. “That class is merely a subset, perhaps a small subset, of who the Government can detain. Far more significant, ‘preventive detention’ allows indefinite imprisonment not based on proven crimes or past violations of law, but of those deemed generally ‘dangerous’ by the Government for various reasons (such as, as Obama put it yesterday, they ‘expressed their allegiance to Osama bin Laden’ or ‘otherwise made it clear that they want to kill Americans’). That’s what ‘preventive’ means: imprisoning people because the Government claims they are likely to engage in violent acts in the future because they are alleged to be ‘combatants.’”
“Once known, the details of the proposal could — and likely will — make this even more extreme by extending the ‘preventive detention’ power beyond a handful of Guantanamo detainees to anyone, anywhere in the world, alleged to be a ‘combatant,’” Greenwald continues. “After all, once you accept the rationale on which this proposal is based — namely, that the U.S. Government must, in order to keep us safe, preventively detain “dangerous” people even when they can’t prove they violated any laws — there’s no coherent reason whatsoever to limit that power to people already at Guantanamo, as opposed to indefinitely imprisoning with no trials all allegedly ‘dangerous’ combatants, whether located in Pakistan, Thailand, Indonesia, Western countries and even the U.S.”
The Obama Administration appears to have embraced “preventive detention” in part because of problems with how Guantanamo prisoners’ cases — and incarceration — were handled under President Bush. Military prosecutors have said that numerous cases could not be brought successfully in civilian courts because evidence was obtained in ways that wouldn’t be admissible on US soil. The Bush Administration originally sought to try numerous detainees in military tribunals, but the Supreme Court ruled that at least some have the rights to challenge their detention in US courts.
Baker notes that Obama’s decision to hold suspects without charges doesn’t propose as broad an executive authority claimed by President Bush.
“Obama’s advisers are not embracing the more disputed Bush contention that the president has inherent power under the Constitution to detain terrorism suspects indefinitely regardless of Congress,” Baker writes.
In a statement to Baker, the Justice Department said, “The administration would rely on authority already provided by Congress [and] is not currently seeking additional authorization.”
“The position conveyed by the Justice Department in the meeting last week broke no new ground and was entirely consistent with information previously provided by the Justice Department to the Senate Armed Services Committee,” the statement added.
Roughly 50 detainees of the more than 200 still held at the US prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba are thought to be affected by the decision.
Filed under: 2-party system, 9/11 Truth, afghan deaths, Afghanistan, airstrike, Barack Obama, Censorship, CIA, civilian casualties, death toll, defense department, Dictatorship, DoD, Empire, Eugenics, fake alqaeda, fallen soldiers, false, Fascism, FBI, federal crime, flag, free press, Genocide, George Bush, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, infanticide, Iraq, Israel, kidnapping, left right paradigm, marine, Media, media blackout, media censorship, Media Manipulation, Military, Military Industrial Complex, military strike, military strikes, nation building, NATO, Nazi, neocons, Neolibs, NSA, nuremburg, obama, occupation, Propaganda, Robert Gates, soldiers, State Sponsored Terrorism, Taliban, The American Legion, Torture, Troops, truth movement, u.s. soldiers, Uncategorized, USMC, war casualties, war crime, War Crimes, War On Terror, warhawk, warhawks, warmonger
NATO Air Strike Kills 150 Afghan Civilians
Rahmatullah, 19, a victim of Friday’ NATO air strike, tries to sit up on his bed in a hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan, Saturday, Sept. 5, 2009.
Pajwok Afghan News
September 5, 2009
Residents of Chahar Dara district in northern Kunduz province say more than 150 civilians were killed and 20 others wounded in Friday’s air strike by NATO-led forces.
The bombing in Haji Aman village came as insurgents and residents emptied oil into jerry canes from tankers hijacked by Taliban militants from the Kunduz-Baghlan Highway.
Inhabitants of the area told Pajhwok Afghan News all those killed in the bombardment were civilians and there were no Taliban at the site at the time the attack took place. Fighters had left the scene after they asked the people to take fuel for free.
An elder from Sarak-i-Bala neighbourhood, Abdul Rahim, said 15 children were among the 50 people of Yaqubi village killed in the bombing raid.
The man, who lost two sons in the incident, argued: “Poverty brought us to this stage.” No guerrillas were among the dead, he said, explaining the fighters well before the deadly assault.
A 50-year-old woman bitterly cried while standing in front of her ruined house. She said her three sons, husband and a grandson perished in the bombardment. Locals showed this reporter as many as 50 graves of civilian victims.
In the Maulvi Naeem village, residents said 20 civilians were killed in the incident. Haji Najmuddin, a tribal elder, lost two nephews. He claimed chemicals bombs were dropped on the villagers. Clothes of his nephews were not damaged but their bodies were badly charred, the man argued.
This reporter saw the graves of those killed in the air strike. Seventy of the fatalities were from Yaqubi and Maulvi Naeem villages and the rest from three other areas.
Meanwhile, Kunduz Governor Eng. Muhammad Omar said a delegation from Kabul had arrived in the district to investigate the incident and determine the exact number of civilian deaths.
Government gives up hope of more European Nato help in Afghanistan
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/6143065/Government-gives-up-hope-of-more-European-Nato-help-in-Afghanistan.html
Afghan air strike galvanises war protesters
Filed under: 2-party system, afghan deaths, Afghanistan, airstrike, Barack Obama, Censorship, CIA, civilian casualties, death toll, defense department, Dictatorship, DoD, Empire, fallen soldiers, false, Fascism, FBI, federal crime, flag, free press, George Bush, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Iraq, Israel, kidnapping, left right paradigm, marine, Media, media blackout, media censorship, Media Manipulation, milirary, Military Industrial Complex, military strike, military strikes, nation building, NATO, Nazi, neocons, Neolibs, NSA, nuremburg, obama, occupation, Propaganda, Robert Gates, soldiers, The American Legion, Torture, Troops, u.s. soldiers, Uncategorized, USMC, war casualties, war crime, War Crimes, War On Terror, warhawk, warhawks, warmonger | Tags: dead marine photo, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Joshua M. Bernard, Julie Jacobson, Marine Lance Cpl. Joshua M. Bernard, wounded marine photo
Mass Censorship of Dead Marine Photo
Paul Craig Roberts
Antiwar.com
September 7, 2009
Americans have lost their ability for introspection, thereby revealing their astounding hypocrisy to the world.
U.S. War Secretary Robert Gates has condemned the Associated Press and a reporter, Julie Jacobson, embedded with U.S. troops in Afghanistan, for taking and releasing a photo of a U.S. Marine who was wounded in action and died from his injury.
The photographer was on patrol with the Marines when they came under fire. She found the courage and presence of mind to do her job. Her reward is to be condemned by the warmonger Gates as “insensitive.” Gates says her employer, the Associated Press, lacks “judgment and common decency.”
The American Legion jumped in and denounced the Associated Press for a “stunning lack of compassion and common decency.”
To stem opposition to its wars, the War Department hides signs of American casualties from the public. Angry that evidence escaped the censor, the war secretary and the American Legion attacked with politically correct jargon: “insensitive,” “offended,” and the “anguish” and “pain and suffering” inflicted upon the Marine’s family. The War Department sounds like it is preparing a harassment tort.
Isn’t this passing the buck? The Marine lost his life not because of the Associated Press and a photographer, but because of the war criminals – Gates, Bush, Cheney, Obama, and the U.S. Congress that supports wars of naked aggression that serve no American purpose, but which keep campaign coffers filled with contributions from the armaments companies.
Marine Lance Cpl. Joshua M. Bernard is dead because the U.S. government and a significant percentage of the U.S. population believe that the U.S. has the right to invade, bomb, and occupy other peoples who have raised no hand against us but are demonized with lies and propaganda.
For the American war secretary it is a photo that is insensitive, not America’s assertion of the right to determine the fate of Afghanistan with bombs and soldiers.
The exceptional “virtuous nation” does not think it is insensitive for America’s bombs to blow innocent villagers to pieces. On Sept. 4, the day before Gates’ outburst over the “insensitive” photo, Agence France Presse reported from Afghanistan that a U.S./NATO air strike had killed large numbers of villagers who had come to get fuel from two tankers that had been hijacked from negligent and inattentive occupation forces:
“’Nobody was in one piece. Hands, legs, and body parts were scattered everywhere. Those who were away from the fuel tanker were badly burnt,’ said 32-year-old Mohammad Daud, depicting a scene from hell. The burned-out shells of the tankers, still smoking in marooned wrecks on the riverbank, were surrounded by the charred-meat remains of villagers from Chahar Dara district in Kunduz province, near the Tajik border. Dr. Farid Rahid, a spokesperson in Kabul for the ministry of health, said up to 250 villagers had been near the tankers when the air strike was called in.”
What does the world think of the United States? The American war secretary and a U.S. military veterans association think a photo of an injured and dying American soldier is insensitive, but not the wipeout of an Afghan village that came to get needed fuel.
The U.S. government is like a criminal who accuses the police of his crime when he is arrested or a sociopathic abuser who blames the victim. It is a known fact that the CIA has violated U.S. law and international law with its assassinations, kidnappings, and torture. But it is not this criminal agency that will be held accountable. Instead, those who will be punished will be those moral beings who, appalled at the illegality and inhumanity of the CIA, leaked the evidence of the agency’s crimes. The CIA has asked the U.S. Justice (sic) Department to investigate what the CIA alleges is the “criminal disclosure” of its secret program to murder suspected foreign terrorist leaders abroad. As we learned from Gitmo, those suspected by America are overwhelmingly innocent.
The CIA program is so indefensible that when CIA director Leon Panetta found out about it six months after being in office, he cancelled the program (assuming those running the program obeyed) and informed Congress.
Yet, the CIA wants the person who revealed its crime to be punished for revealing secret information. A secret agency this unmoored from moral and legal standards is a greater threat to our country than are terrorists. Who knows what false flag operation it will pull off in order to provide justification and support for its agenda. An agency that is more liability than benefit should be abolished.
The agency’s program of assassinating terrorist leaders is itself fraught with contradictions and dangers. The hatred created by the U.S. and Israel is independent of any leader. If one is killed, others take his place. The most likely outcome of the CIA assassination program is that the agency will be manipulated by rivals, just as the FBI was used by one mafia family to eliminate another. In order to establish credibility with groups that they are attempting to penetrate, CIA agents will be drawn into participating in violent acts against the U.S. and its allies.
Accusing the truthteller instead of the evildoer is the position that the neoconservatives took against the New York Times when after one year’s delay, which gave George W. Bush time to get reelected, the Times published the NSA leak that revealed that the Bush administration was committing felonies by violating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The neocons, especially those associated with Commentary magazine, wanted the New York Times indicted for treason. To the evil neocon mind, anything that interferes with their diabolical agenda is treason.
This is the way many Americans think. America über alles! No one counts but us (and Israel). The deaths we inflict and the pain and suffering we bring to others are merely collateral damage on the bloody path to American hegemony.
The attitude of the “freedom and democracy” U.S. government is that anyone who complains of illegality or immorality or inhumanity is a traitor. The Republican Sen. Christopher S. Bond is a recent example. Bond got on his high horse about “irreparable damage” to the CIA from the disclosures of its criminal activities. Bond wants those “back stabbers” who revealed the CIA’s wrongdoings to be held accountable. Bond is unable to grasp that it is the criminal activities, not their disclosure, that is the source of the problem. Obviously, the Whistleblower Protection Act has no support from Sen. Bond, who sees it as just another law to plough under.
This is where the U.S. government stands today: Ignoring and covering up government crimes is the patriotic thing to do. To reveal the government’s crimes is an act of treason. Many Americans on both sides of the aisle agree.
Yet, they still think that they are The Virtuous Nation, the exceptional nation, the salt of the earth.
Filed under: 9/11, 9/11 Mysteries, 9/11 Truth, alqaeda, CIA, Dick Cheney, fake alqaeda, False Flag, FBI, federal crimes, George Bush, Ground Zero, Hegelian Dialectic, inside job, ISI, marine, Mineta Testemony, neocons, NORTHCOM, Pakistan, Pentagon, PNAC, Problem Reaction Solution, State Sponsored Terrorism, truth movement, USMC, War On Terror, World Trade Center
Former High-Ranking Intelligence Officer: Cheney Responsible for 9/11
Washington’s Blog
September 2, 2009
David Steele is a former 20-year Marine Corps infantry and intelligence officer, the second-ranking civilian in U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence, and former CIA clandestine services case officer.
Steele has previously written that “9/11 was at a minimum allowed to happen as a pretext for war”.
This month, Steele went further, writing:
Pakistan briefed Cheney [about the plans for the terrorist attacks ahead of time] …nations also got wind of this and warned the CIA. We also had two walk-ins to the FBI, one in Orlando, one in Newark, that were dismissed by the FBI because the names were all virgins and not in the FBI data base—the arrogance of stupid bureaucracy.
Cheney saw an opportunity for what Bush called his trifecta, and gave it to him by giving the go-ahead to ISI and Al Qaeda, and ordering up a terrorism exercise that allowed him to send all relevant close-in air defense strip alert craft away from the target areas, and to disable the NORTHCOM normal response to flight path diversion.
While the details might be open to debate, many other very high-level intelligence officers have said the “official” explanation for 9/11 makes no sense. And see this and this.
Overhead at the Time of the Pentagon Attack?
Cheney Considered Idea to Kill U.S. Navy Seals and Blame it on Iran
Filed under: Barack Obama, Blackwater, Coup, Islamabad, Marines, mercenary, Military, nation building, Neolibs, obama, obama surge, occupation, Pakistan, soldiers, surge, Troops, USMC, War On Terror | Tags: Port Qasim, us hummers, us vehicles
US Hummers Enter Pakistan, Undercover American Soldiers and Blackwater Swarm Islamabad
Uruknet
August 31, 2009
A large number of US armored carriers have arrived at Port Qasim. Here are the first exclusive pictures. This adds to increased activity of armed US ‘diplomats’ in the two cities of Islamabad and Peshawar and the construction of the world’s largest US embassy in Islamabad close to sensitive federal government departments. The PPP government and other Pakistani politicians are silently encouraging this expanded American role to counterbalance a powerful Pakistani military.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—Undercover armed Americans are swarming the Pakistani capital in the latest sign that the elected government has allowed Washington to dispatch what is believed to be a large number of American special operations agents and contractual security guards, including the infamous Blackwater private militia.
This comes at a time when whistleblowers within the government and the military are reporting the arrival of a large number of US Marines in Pakistan. Some reports put the figure at 1,000 US soldiers, much of whom are thought to be arriving as part of the massive expansion of the US Embassy and four consulates across the country. While the US embassy continues to deny this, new buildings are under construction to house security teams. The expanded US embassy is supposed to become the largest US embassy in the world.
Above is an exclusive picture taken by a source at the entrance of Port Qasim near Karachi, showing US Hummers being transported out of the facility. According to the source, the shipment was not destined for Afghanistan. The picture was taken on Aug. 19, 2009 and being released here for the first time.
The latest evidence of the growing American military presence in the Pakistani capital is the arrest of four Americans carrying automatic weapons in a part of the Pakistani capital that foreigners seldom visit.
The four were arrested in Sector G-9 of Islamabad in the evening of Saturday, Aug. 29.
A police picket stopped two cars carrying the four Americans who refused to explain why they were carrying sophisticated automatic weapons in the capital city. Diplomats are not supposed to carry weapons because their security is the responsibility of the host government, and security guards are not supposed to be carrying weapons outside the embassy except during official assignments. The four were taken to a police station for interrogation but were released when two retired Pakistani army officers showed up and threatened police officers of dire consequences.
The police established that the four Americans carried diplomatic status and were part of the US embassy staff.
When I called today US embassy spokesperson Richard Snelsire about the incident, he refused to comment and referred me to the Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Pakistani police.
“Do US diplomats normally carry weapons?” I asked.
Mr. Snelsire’s reply was, “Only if they are permitted” to do so by the Pakistani government. But he avoided commenting on the incident or explaining whether the four were diplomats.
The spokesman’s reaction confirms suspicions that private US security guards are active in Pakistan. For obvious reasons these guards do not come under the cover of US Department of State employees in Pakistan. This could be one reason why US embassy spokesperson declined comment on the story since the presence and the activities of the four armed men might be beyond the purview of the US embassy in Islamabad.
There is strong evidence that the private US mercenary army, Blackwater, has also established office in the Pakistani capital. Authorities have received several complaints of ill mannered military-type westerners misbehaving or recklessly driving by.
The Pakistani capital was the scene of at least two incidents recently where armed American diplomats verbally and physically assaulted Pakistani police officers. In one case, newspapers called for expelling an armed US diplomat who cursed and swore at the host country. The Pakistani government, which is known to be pro-American, refused to take action.
US HIRING PAK GOVT. SERVANTS AS CONSULTANTS
The Americans appear to have recruited a large number of retired Pakistani army officers, in addition to quietly hiring Pakistani civil servants without making any of this public. A famous government university professor in Islamabad who is active in US media campaigns against Pakistan’s nuclear program has also been hired as a consultant. Government employees cannot offer their services to foreign governments but this is happening now under an increasingly weak Pakistani state and government.
WHO IS INVITING US MILITARY TO PAKISTAN
There are indications that the PPP government and some other politicians, like Nawaz Sharif, are encouraging the Americans to get involved in domestic issues especially as a hedge against a powerful Pakistani military. Politicians are aware they have led the country to a national failure on all fronts since the general elections in February 2008. The public mood is gradually turning against them. This has stoked the rumor mill about disgruntlement within the Pakistani military regarding the failures of the politicians.
Washington is spending nearly one billion dollars to expand its Islamabad embassy. On completion, the US embassy in Islamabad will become the largest in the world. Interestingly, both the government, led by President Zardari, and the opposition, led by Nawaz Sharif, refuse to question why Washington has been granted exceptional concessions to construct an imperial-size embassy and how at least 18 acres of the most expensive real state in the capital has been handed over to the Americans for this purpose at throwaway prices.
Filed under: 9/11, 9/11 Truth, al-qaeda, blackops, CIA, Coup, False Flag, FBI, inside job, Islamabad, marine, Military, muslim, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, State Sponsored Terrorism, suicide bombing, Taliban, Troops, USMC, War On Terror | Tags: hotel bombing, marriott hotel, october suprise, pakistan bombing, Rehman Malik, soldiers, truck bombing, u.s. soldiers
FBI hunts American citizens for deadly bombing in Pakistan
World Net Daily
September 29, 2008
Aafia Siddiqui, alleged al-Qaida “fixer” whose interrogation has the FBI on alert
As Pakistani investigators hunt the terrorists behind the massive Marriott Hotel bombing in Islamabad, FBI agents in the U.S. have begun aggressively hunting for Americans who have recently returned from trips to Pakistan where they may have trained at al-Qaida camps, WND has learned.
A coast-to-coast dragnet has been launched partly in response to leads developed in the arrest of one of al-Qaida’s “fixers” in the U.S., say FBI officials. They report the bureau is in a race against time to identify Pakistan-trained sleeper cells and disrupt a possible pre-election “October surprise.”
For the first time since 9/11, counterterrorism field agents have been authorized to spy on young Muslim men and women – including American citizens – who have traveled to Pakistan without any specific evidence of wrongdoing.
http://noworldsystem.com/2008/09/26/..explosion-to-us-military/
Filed under: 9/11 Truth, al-qaeda, blackops, CIA, Coup, False Flag, inside job, Islamabad, marine, Military, Pakistan, qatar, Saudi Arabia, State Sponsored Terrorism, suicide bombing, Taliban, Troops, uav, USMC, War On Terror | Tags: hotel bombing, marriott hotel, pakistan bombing, Rehman Malik, soldiers, truck bombing, u.s. soldiers
Pakistan Investigating US Marine Activity Inside Marriott Hotel Days Before Huge Bombing
Steve Watson
Infowars.net
September 24, 2008
A view of a deep crater caused by Saturday’s massive truck bombing at Marriott hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan Sunday, Sept. 21, 2008. The bombing devastated the luxury hotel in Pakistan’s capital, killing some 60 people and injuring more than 250
Pakistani authorities investigating last Saturday’s huge bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad are looking into evidence that US marines were occupying two floors just days prior to the blast and were witnessed unloading a truckload of steel cases inside.
“The authorities want to ascertain if it was a routine exercise or part of some special mission that does not have the approval of the government of Pakistan,” Pakistan’s largest newspaper The News reported.
The reports of the mysterious activity first surfaced in the Pakistani media on Sunday.
According to the accounts, several witnesses, including Pakistani government officials, described seeing a US embassy truckload of steel boxes unloaded while all entrances to and from the hotel were locked down at around midnight on the 16th September.
The cases were not taken through security scanners in the hotel’s lobby, but were shifted directly to the fourth and fifth floors, the same floors that fire broke out on after the truck bombing on Saturday.
“Already, the government has got information that several rooms on the fourth floor of the Marriott were in permanent use of the US authorities. Three of these rooms were said to be inter-connected and contained some intelligence equipment and other material allegedly used for espionage,” The News also reported.
The reports have also been picked up in the press in Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
A US embassy statement said that the marines were a routine team of support personnel that often precede and/or accompany certain US government officials, and that the cases contained communication equipment.
Further rumours that several senior officers of the CIA were staying at the hotel at the time of the attack were also strenuously denied by the US embassy statement as “inaccurate, irresponsible, baseless and completely without any foundation whatsoever.”
“Al Qaeda” was quickly portioned with the blame once more just hours after the dust had settled, while the Taliban have also been touted as suspects.
Meanwhile new claims have surfaced linking the bombing to an Islamic fundamentalist group based in Iran.
In our leading article earlier this week which has since been picked up by the Pakistan Daily, we detailed how Pakistan’s new leadership were due to dine at the hotel, but changed the venue at the last minute, according to a senior government official.
This raises the question, whether it be “Al Qaeda”, the Taliban or some other group of anti-American “terrorists”, why would they want to decapitate the new anti-US administration of Pakistan?
Pakistan hotel bombing kills at least 60
AFP
September 21, 2008
A suicide bomber detonated a truck packed with explosives at the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad on Saturday, killing at least 60 people in a brazen attack in the heart of the Pakistan capital.
Around 200 people were wounded, some critically, and there were fears more dead would be found in the fiery wreckage of the hotel, a popular gathering place for politicians, foreigners and the Pakistan elite.
Officials said they were worried the building, engulfed in flame after the blast ruptured a gas pipeline, would collapse. A security official said many people leapt to their deaths from upper floors rather than be burnt alive.
The bombing came shortly after new President Asif Ali Zardari, who faces a struggle to rein in Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants, delivered his inaugural address to parliament only a few hundred metres away.
It was one of the deadliest attacks in an increasingly bloody campaign by militants in Pakistan, a vital ally in the US-led “war on terror,” and presented Zardari with a major challenge just days after he took office.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/why-..-in-pakistan.html
Pakistan probes mystery of US Marines’ steel boxes in Marriott
http://www.hindustantimes.com/Stor..%27+steel+boxes+&strParent=strParentID
“U.S. drone” crashes in northwest Pakistan
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/20080924/tpl-uk-pakistan-drone-81f3b62.html
Zardari ‘was target of bomb plot’
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/itn/20080922/twl-zardari-was-target-of-bomb-plot-41f21e0.html
Pakistan blames US raids for hotel bombing
http://www.independent.co.uk/ne..r-hotel-bombing-938952.html
Filed under: 9/11, 9/11 Eyewitness, 9/11 Truth, Afghanistan, Alex Jones, Controlled Demolition, Dissent, False Flag, georgia, inside job, Iraq, marine, nation building, occupation, Oil, Protest, Russia, State Sponsored Terrorism, Syria, Troops, Truth Action, USMC, War On Terror, World Trade Center, wtc-7 | Tags: luis conyer, Mahdi Dakhlallah, marines for 9/11 truth, mutiny, oil pipelines, soldiers, u.s. soldiers, UCMJ
Former Syrian minister: US guilty for 9/11 attacks
Jerusalem Post
September 12, 2008
The Syrian government daily Teshreen marked the seventh anniversary of 9/11 this week in a unique fashion: by publishing an article by Syria’s former information minister blaming US intelligence agencies for the attacks.
According to Mahdi Dakhlallah, in a piece that appeared Wednesday, the intelligence agencies were behind the September 11, 2001 attacks to provide a pretext for a preplanned US plan to invade Iraq and Afghanistan.
“These plans were ready and prepared [in advance] – and all that was needed was to find a pretext to begin their immediate implementation,” wrote Dakhlallah, in a piece of which excerpts were translated by MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute.
Dakhlallah wrote that in the US, the end justifies the means, and Washington’s overarching goal was to invade Afghanistan “to get close to the Caspian Sea gas and oil pipelines, and then to invade Iraq and to fix the poles of the tent of unipolarity in the ground.”
Indeed, wrote Dakhlallah, “the shock following 9/11 created an American public opinion that supported the war, aggression, and madness of our time, to which Afghanistan, Iraq, and all global stability fell victim. No one believes that it would have been possible to invade Afghanistan and Iraq in the same way and so fast had it not been for the 9/11 attacks. That’s how it always is: the end justifies the means.”
Dakhlallah wrote that on the seventh anniversary of 9/11, the truth about the events remained to be told.
“The world may have to wait 25 years for the truth to come to light and for the secret documents and information about what happened to be presented.
“But who cares about the truth?”
According to Dakhlallah, “What is important, always, is the use of the events in order to carry out a strategy planned in advance – which raises the possibility that the injured party itself carried out the deed, especially if the matter concerns a country with great strategic interests such as the US.”
http://www.prisonplanet.com/scientists-unusual-magnetic-forces-caused-twin-towers-collapse.html
Key Witness to WTC 7 Passes Away in Hospital at 53
http://www.infowars.com/?p=4602
Filed under: 1st amendment, 2008 Election, Anti-War, army, bill of rights, colorado, demonstration, Denver, Dictatorship, Dissent, DNC, Empire, Fascism, free speech, Iraq, iraq deaths, Iraqnam, IVAW, Marines, Military, nation building, Nazi, occupation, Oppression, Police State, Protest, PTSD, Troops, US Constitution, USMC, veterans, War Crimes, War On Terror | Tags: soldiers, u.s. soldiers
U.S. Marines Act Out Iraq Scenarios at the DNC
The Oregonian
August 26, 2008
The group, representing Iraq Veterans Against the War, staged a series of simulated car stops, detainments, reaction to sniper fire and secure movement through an urban area.
“We’re trying to bring a taste of what an occupied city feels like,” said Army Spc. Garret Reppenhagen, one of the participants.
Filed under: 9/11, 9/11 Truth, marine, navy, New York, USMC, War On Terror, World Trade Center | Tags: USS New York, warship
Introducing The USS New York – Made From Steel From The Towers Of 9/11
Say Anything Blog
August 7, 2008
This is amazing:
It was built with 24 tons of scrap steel from the World Trade Center .
It is the fifth in a new class of warship – designed for missions th at include special operations against terrorists. It will carry a crew of 360 sailors and 700 combat-ready Marines to be delivered ashore by helicopters and assault craft.
Steel from the World Trade Center was melted down in a foundry in Amite , LA to cast the ship’s bow section. When it was poured into the molds on Sept 9, 2003, ‘those big rough steelworkers treated it with total reverence,’ recalled Navy Capt. Kevin Wensing, who was there. ‘It was a spiritual moment for everybody there.’
Junior Chavers, foundry operations manager, said that when the trade center steel first arrived, he touched it with his hand and the ‘hair on my neck stood up.’ ‘It had a big meaning to it for all of us,’ he said. ‘They knocked us down. They can’t keep us down. We’re going to be back.’
The ship’s motto? ‘Never Forget’
Damn, that’s fine.
Filed under: 9/11, anthrax, anthrax vaccine, army, deadly vaccines, Eugenics, fallen soldiers, Gulf War Syndrome, health and environment, Human Experiments, innoculation, Iraq, iraq deaths, Karl Rove, marine, medical Experiments, Military, nation building, navy, occupation, scandal, Troops, USMC, Vaccine, vaccine virus, veterans, War On Terror, White House | Tags: soldiers, u.s. soldiers
White House memo exposes Rove knew of problems with anthrax vaccine
Raw Story
August 7, 2008
The Department of Defense continued its controversial mandatory anthrax vaccinations program despite high ranking Bush administration officials acknowledging there were problems with the vaccine within months of the Bush administration taking office—well before the 9/11 attacks and the October 2001 anthrax letters.
A 2001 memorandum from former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove to then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz indicates that the White House knew of problems relating to the Gulf War Syndrome and the military’s controversial anthrax vaccine.
Obtained by RAW STORY earlier this year from a senior military official and referenced in today’s New York Daily News, Rove wrote, “I do think we need to examine the issues of both Gulf War Syndrome and the Anthrax vaccine and how they can be dealt with. They are political problems for us.”
Filed under: 1984, 1st amendment, 2nd Amendment, 4th amendment, Air Force, anti gun, Anti-War, army, Big Brother, bill of rights, Britain, Canada, civil liberties, civil rights, Department of Defense, DHS, Dictatorship, Dissent, DoD, Empire, Europe, european union, Fascism, FOIA, free speech, global elite, global government, global police force, Globalism, Gun Control, Homeland Security, Israel, marine, mark koernke, Martial Law, michael chertoff, Military, militia, national guard, Nazi, New World Order, Oppression, patriot movement, police brutality, Police State, Posse Comitatus, presidential directive, Protest, Provocateurs, Psyops, puerto rico, SPP Summit, Surveillance, Troops, UN, United Kingdom, US Constitution, US Marshal, USMC, War On Terror, Washington D.C., world police force, Zionism | Tags: cidcon-1, israeli police, Montebello, opsec
Operation Garden Plot: Military & U.N. to Control Civil Dissent
Filed under: Afghanistan, army, Britain, Iraq, iraq deaths, JCS, Kurdish, nation building, occupation, Pentagon, Pullout, Raid, Robert Gates, Troops, Turkey, USMC, War On Terror
Gates plays down report Marines want to leave Iraq
Reuters
October 11, 2007
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Thursday played down a newspaper report that the U.S. Marine Corps was pressing to remove its forces from Iraq and switch to a leading role in Afghanistan.
“I have heard that they were beginning to think about that and that’s all that I’ve heard. I’ve seen no plan, no one’s come to me with any proposals about it,” Gates told reporters in London after meeting his British counterpart, Des Browne.
The New York Times reported on Wednesday that the Marines’ suggestion was raised in a session last week convened by Gates for the U.S. military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff and regional war-fighting commanders. It comes at a time when Washington’s key ally in Iraq, Britain, is drawing down its presence there.
“My understanding is that it’s — at this point — extremely preliminary thinking on the part of perhaps some staff people in the Marine Corps but I don’t think at this point it has any stature,” Gates said.
Under the proposal, the newspaper said, the U.S. Army would concentrate on Iraq while the Marines would focus on Afghanistan.
Supporters of the idea argue that a realignment could allow the U.S. Army and Marines each to operate more efficiently in sustaining troop levels for two wars that have strained their forces, the New York Times said, citing senior military and Pentagon officials who requested anonymity.
The plan would require a major reshuffling and make the Marines the dominant American force in Afghanistan in a war that has broader public support than the one in Iraq, the Times said.
REALIGNMENT
Some officials sympathetic to the army said such a realignment would help ease pressure on the army by allowing it to shift attention from Afghanistan into Iraq, the newspaper reported.
Currently, there are no major Marine units among the 26,000 or so U.S. forces in Afghanistan. In Iraq there are about 25,000 Marines among the more than 160,000 U.S. troops there.
Despite some signs of disquiet in Washington about British plans to withdraw troops from southern Iraq, Gates and Browne put on a show of unity and insisted their plans were closely coordinated.
“The United Kingdom has been and continues to be a stalwart ally and a major contributor at every stage of the Iraq campaign,” Gates said.
Britain said this week it planned to halve its forces in Iraq to about 2,500 troops by next spring. There is an expectation that Britain will then focus more troops on Afghanistan, although the Ministry of Defense has not confirmed such a move.
“The U.S. and the U.K. share exactly the same aspirations for Iraq — for a stable, prosperous and democratic Iraq,” Defense Minister Browne said after meeting Gates.
“But ultimately only the Iraqis themselves can deliver that,” he said. “Our job is to fulfill our strategic objective which is to get the Iraqi security forces to a stage where they can take over responsibility for their own security.”
Marines Press to Remove Their Forces From Iraq
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/1….gewanted=print
Number Of U.S. Army Recruits With Criminal Records Doubles
http://www.huffingtonpost.com…-us-army-recru_n_68018.html
Terrorists and Civilians Killed in Coalition Raid in Iraq
http://voanews.com/english/2007-10-11-voa8.cfm
Turkey escalates action near Iraq border
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071010/ap_on_re_mi_ea/turkey_iraq
Turkey set to attack Kurds in Iraq
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IJ12Ak01.html
noworldsystem.com 
