| Author | Message | | Alpha | | Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2004 4:27 pm Post subject: Iran: A Bridge too Far? |
| http://informationclearinghouse.info/article7147.htm
http://www.nowarforisrael.com
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Iran: A Bridge too Far?
The weapon that could defeat the US in the Gulf
A word to the reader: The following paper is so shocking that, after preparing the initial draft, I didn’t want to believe it myself, and resolved to disprove it with more research. However, I only succeeded in turning up more evidence in support of my thesis. And I repeated this cycle of discovery and denial several more times before finally deciding to go with the article. I believe that a serious writer must follow the trail of evidence, no matter where it leads, and report back. So here is my story. Don’t be surprised if it causes you to squirm. Its purpose is not to make predictions –– history makes fools of those who claim to know the future –– but simply to describe the peril that awaits us in the Persian Gulf. By awakening to the extent of that danger, perhaps we can still find a way to save our nation and the world from disaster. If we are very lucky, we might even create an alternative future that holds some promise of resolving the monumental conflicts of our time. MG
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Iran: A Bridge too Far?
by Mark Gaffney
10/26/04 "ICH" -- Last July, they dubbed it operation Summer Pulse: a simultaneous mustering of US Naval forces, world wide, that was unprecedented. According to the Navy, it was the first exercise of its new Fleet Response Plan (FRP), the purpose of which was to enable the Navy to respond quickly to an international crisis. The Navy wanted to show its increased force readiness, that is, its capacity to rapidly move combat power to any global hot spot. Never in the history of the US Navy had so many carrier battle groups been involved in a single operation. Even the US fleet massed in the Gulf and eastern Mediterranean during operation Desert Storm in 1991, and in the recent invasion of Iraq, never exceeded six battle groups. But last July and August there were seven of them on the move, each battle group consisting of a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier with its full complement of 7-8 supporting ships, and 70 or more assorted aircraft. Most of the activity, according to various reports, was in the Pacific, where the fleet participated in joint exercises with the Taiwanese navy.
But why so much naval power underway at the same time? What potential world crisis could possibly require more battle groups than were deployed during the recent invasion of Iraq? In past years, when the US has seen fit to “show the flag” or flex its naval muscle, one or two carrier groups have sufficed. Why this global show of power?
The news headlines about the joint-maneuvers in the South China Sea read: “Saber Rattling Unnerves China”, and: “Huge Show of Force Worries Chinese.” But the reality was quite different, and, as we shall see, has grave ramifications for the continuing US military presence in the Persian Gulf; because operation Summer Pulse reflected a high-level Pentagon decision that an unprecedented show of strength was needed to counter what is viewed as a growing threat –– in the particular case of China, because of Peking’s newest Sovremenny-class destroyers recently acquired from Russia.
“Nonsense!” you are probably thinking. That’s impossible. How could a few picayune destroyers threaten the US Pacific fleet?”
Here is where the story thickens: Summer Pulse amounted to a tacit acknowledgement, obvious to anyone paying attention, that the United States has been eclipsed in an important area of military technology, and that this qualitative edge is now being wielded by others, including the Chinese; because those otherwise very ordinary destroyers were, in fact, launching platforms for Russian-made 3M-82 Moskit anti-ship cruise missiles (NATO designation: SS-N-22 Sunburn), a weapon for which the US Navy currently has no defense. Here I am not suggesting that the US status of lone world Superpower has been surpassed. I am simply saying that a new global balance of power is emerging, in which other individual states may, on occasion, achieve “an asymmetric advantage” over the US. And this, in my view, explains the immense scale of Summer Pulse. The US show last summer of overwhelming strength was calculated to send a message.
The Sunburn Missile
I was shocked when I learned the facts about these Russian-made cruise missiles. The problem is that so many of us suffer from two common misperceptions. The first follows from our assumption that Russia is militarily weak, as a result of the breakup of the old Soviet system. Actually, this is accurate, but it does not reflect the complexities. Although the Russian navy continues to rust in port, and the Russian army is in disarray, in certain key areas Russian technology is actually superior to our own. And nowhere is this truer than in the vital area of anti-ship cruise missile technology, where the Russians hold at least a ten-year lead over the US. The second misperception has to do with our complacency in general about missiles-as-weapons –– probably attributable to the pathetic performance of Saddam Hussein’s Scuds during the first Gulf war: a dangerous illusion that I will now attempt to rectify.
Many years ago, Soviet planners gave up trying to match the US Navy ship for ship, gun for gun, and dollar for dollar. The Soviets simply could not compete with the high levels of US spending required to build up and maintain a huge naval armada. They shrewdly adopted an alternative approach based on strategic defense. They searched for weaknesses, and sought relatively inexpensive ways to exploit those weaknesses. The Soviets succeeded: by developing several supersonic anti-ship missiles, one of which, the SS-N-22 Sunburn, has been called “the most lethal missile in the world today.”
After the collapse of the Soviet Union the old military establishment fell upon hard times. But in the late1990s Moscow awakened to the under-utilized potential of its missile technology to generate desperately needed foreign exchange. A decision was made to resuscitate selected programs, and, very soon, Russian missile technology became a hot export commodity. Today, Russian missiles are a growth industry generating much-needed cash for Russia, with many billions in combined sales to India, China, Viet Nam, Cuba, and also Iran. In the near future this dissemination of advanced technology is likely to present serious challenges to the US. Some have even warned that the US Navy’s largest ships, the massive carriers, have now become floating death traps, and should for this reason be mothballed.
The Sunburn missile has never seen use in combat, to my knowledge, which probably explains why its fearsome capabilities are not more widely recognized. Other cruise missiles have been used, of course, on several occasions, and with devastating results. During the Falklands War, French-made Exocet missiles, fired from Argentine fighters, sunk the HMS Sheffield and another ship. And, in 1987, during the Iran-Iraq war, the USS Stark was nearly cut in half by a pair of Exocets while on patrol in the Persian Gulf. On that occasion US Aegis radar picked up the incoming Iraqi fighter (a French-made Mirage), and tracked its approach to within 50 miles. The radar also “saw” the Iraqi plane turn about and return to its base. But radar never detected the pilot launch his weapons. The sea-skimming Exocets came smoking in under radar and were only sighted by human eyes moments before they ripped into the Stark, crippling the ship and killing 37 US sailors.
The 1987 surprise attack on the Stark exemplifies the dangers posed by anti-ship cruise missiles. And the dangers are much more serious in the case of the Sunburn, whose specs leave the sub-sonic Exocet in the dust. Not only is the Sunburn much larger and faster, it has far greater range and a superior guidance system. Those who have witnessed its performance trials invariably come away stunned. According to one report, when the Iranian Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani visited Moscow in October 2001 he requested a test firing of the Sunburn, which the Russians were only too happy to arrange. So impressed was Ali Shamkhani that he placed an order for an undisclosed number of the missiles.
The Sunburn can deliver a 200-kiloton nuclear payload, or: a 750-pound conventional warhead, within a range of 100 miles, more than twice the range of the Exocet. The Sunburn combines a Mach 2.1 speed (two times the speed of sound) with a flight pattern that hugs the deck and includes “violent end maneuvers” to elude enemy defenses. The missile was specifically designed to defeat the US Aegis radar defense system. Should a US Navy Phalanx point defense somehow manage to detect an incoming Sunburn missile, the system has only seconds to calculate a fire solution –– not enough time to take out the intruding missile. The US Phalanx defense employs a six-barreled gun that fires 3,000 depleted-uranium rounds a minute, but the gun must have precise coordinates to destroy an intruder “just in time.”
The Sunburn’s combined supersonic speed and payload size produce tremendous kinetic energy on impact, with devastating consequences for ship and crew. A single one of these missiles can sink a large warship, yet costs considerably less than a fighter jet. Although the Navy has been phasing out the older Phalanx defense system, its replacement, known as the Rolling Action Missile (RAM) has never been tested against the weapon it seems destined to one day face in combat.
Implications For US Forces in the Gulf
The US Navy’s only plausible defense against a robust weapon like the Sunburn missile is to detect the enemy’s approach well ahead of time, whether destroyers, subs, or fighter-bombers, and defeat them before they can get in range and launch their deadly cargo. For this purpose US AWACs radar planes assigned to each naval battle group are kept aloft on a rotating schedule. The planes “see” everything within two hundred miles of the fleet, and are complemented with intelligence from orbiting satellites.
But US naval commanders operating in the Persian Gulf face serious challenges that are unique to the littoral, i.e., coastal, environment. A glance at a map shows why: The Gulf is nothing but a large lake, with one narrow outlet, and most of its northern shore, i.e., Iran, consists of mountainous terrain that affords a commanding tactical advantage over ships operating in Gulf waters. The rugged northern shore makes for easy concealment of coastal defenses, such as mobile missile launchers, and also makes their detection problematic. Although it was not widely reported, the US actually lost the battle of the Scuds in the first Gulf War –– termed “the great Scud hunt” –– and for similar reasons. Saddam Hussein’s mobile Scud launchers proved so difficult to detect and destroy –– over and over again the Iraqis fooled allied reconnaissance with decoys –– that during the course of Desert Storm the US was unable to confirm even a single kill. This proved such an embarrassment to the Pentagon, afterwards, that the unpleasant stats were buried in official reports. But the blunt fact is that the US failed to stop the Scud attacks. The launches continued until the last few days of the conflict. Luckily, the Scud’s inaccuracy made it an almost useless weapon. At one point General Norman Schwarzkopf quipped dismissively to the press that his soldiers had a greater chance of being struck by lightning in Georgia than by a Scud in Kuwait.
But that was then, and it would be a grave error to allow the Scud’s ineffectiveness to blur the facts concerning this other missile. The Sunburn’s amazing accuracy was demonstrated not long ago in a live test staged at sea by the Chinese –– and observed by US spy planes. Not only did the Sunburn missile destroy the dummy target ship, it scored a perfect bull’s eye, hitting the crosshairs of a large “X” mounted on the ship’s bridge. The only word that does it justice, awesome, has become a cliché, hackneyed from hyperbolic excess.
The US Navy has never faced anything in combat as formidable as the Sunburn missile. But this will surely change if the US and Israel decide to wage a so-called preventive war against Iran to destroy its nuclear infrastructure. Storm clouds have been darkening over the Gulf for many months. In recent years Israel upgraded its air force with a new fleet of long-range F-15 fighter-bombers, and even more recently took delivery of 5,000 bunker-buster bombs from the US –– weapons that many observers think are intended for use against Iran.
The arming for war has been matched by threats. Israeli officials have declared repeatedly that they will not allow the Mullahs to develop nuclear power, not even reactors to generate electricity for peaceful use. Their threats are particularly worrisome, because Israel has a long history of pre-emptive war. (See my 1989 book Dimona: the Third Temple? and also my 2003 article Will Iran Be Next? posted at < http://www.InformationClearingHouse.info/article3288.htm >)
Never mind that such a determination is not Israel’s to make, and belongs instead to the international community, as codified in the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). With regard to Iran, the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA’s) recent report (September 2004) is well worth a look, as it repudiates facile claims by the US and Israel that Iran is building bombs. While the report is highly critical of Tehran for its ambiguities and its grudging release of documents, it affirms that IAEA inspectors have been admitted to every nuclear site in the country to which they have sought access, without exception. Last year Iran signed the strengthened IAEA inspection protocol, which until then had been voluntary. And the IAEA has found no hard evidence, to date, either that bombs exist or that Iran has made a decision to build them. (The latest IAEA report can be downloaded at: www.GlobalSecurity.org)
In a talk on October 3, 2004, IAEA Director General Mohamed El Baradei made the clearest statement yet: "Iran has no nuclear weapons program", he said, and then repeated himself for emphasis: “Iran has no nuclear weapons program, but I personally don’t rush to conclusions before all the realities are clarified. So far I see nothing that could be called an imminent danger. I have seen no nuclear weapons program in Iran. What I have seen is that Iran is trying to gain access to nuclear enrichment technology, and so far there is no danger from Iran. Therefore, we should make use of political and diplomatic means before thinking of resorting to other alternatives.”
( http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/news_service/middle_east_full_story.asp?service_id=5051 )
No one disputes that Tehran is pursuing a dangerous path, but with 200 or more Israeli nukes targeted upon them the Iranians’ insistence on keeping their options open is understandable. Clearly, the nuclear nonproliferation regime today hangs by the slenderest of threads. The world has arrived at a fateful crossroads.
A Fearful Symmetry?
If a showdown over Iran develops in the coming months, the man who could hold the outcome in his hands will be thrust upon the world stage. That man, like him or hate him, is Russian President Vladimir Putin. He has been castigated severely in recent months for gathering too much political power to himself. But according to former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, who was interviewed on US television recently by David Brokaw, Putin has not imposed a tyranny upon Russia –– yet. Gorbachev thinks the jury is still out on Putin.
Perhaps, with this in mind, we should be asking whether Vladimir Putin is a serious student of history. If he is, then he surely recognizes that the deepening crisis in the Persian Gulf presents not only manifold dangers, but also opportunities. Be assured that the Russian leader has not forgotten the humiliating defeat Ronald Reagan inflicted upon the old Soviet state. (Have we Americans forgotten?) By the mid-1980s the Soviets were in Kabul, and had all but defeated the Mujahedeen. The Soviet Union appeared secure in its military occupation of Afghanistan. But then, in 1986, the first US Stinger missiles reached the hands of the Afghani resistance; and, quite suddenly, Soviet helicopter gunships and MiGs began dropping out of the skies like flaming stones. The tide swiftly turned, and by 1989 it was all over but the hand wringing and gnashing of teeth in the Kremlin. Defeated, the Soviets slunk back across the frontier. The whole world cheered the American Stingers, which had carried the day.
This very night, as he sips his cognac, what is Vladimir Putin thinking? Is he perhaps thinking about the perverse symmetries of history? If so, he may also be wondering (and discussing with his closest aides) how a truly great nation like the United States could be so blind and so stupid as to allow another state, i.e., Israel, to control its foreign policy, especially in a region as vital (and volatile) as the Mid-East. One can almost hear the Russians’ animated conversation:
“The Americans! What is the matter with them?”
“They simply cannot help themselves.”
“What idiots!”
“A nation as foolish as this deserves to be taught a lesson…”
“Yes! For their own good.”
“It must be a painful lesson, one they will never forget…”
“Are we agreed, then, comrades?”
“Let us teach our American friends a lesson about the limits of military power!”
Does anyone really believe that Vladimir Putin will hesitate to seize a most rare opportunity to change the course of history and, in the bargain, take his sweet revenge? Surely Putin understands the terrible dimensions of the trap into which the US has blundered, thanks to the Israelis and their neo-con supporters in Washington who lobbied so vociferously for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, against all friendly and expert advice, and who even now beat the drums of war against Iran. Would Putin be wrong to conclude that the US will never leave the region unless it is first defeated militarily? Should we blame him for deciding that Iran is “one bridge too far”?
If the US and Israel overreach, and the Iranians close the net with Russian anti-ship missiles, it will be a fearful symmetry, indeed…
Springing the Trap
At the battle of Cannae in 216 BC the great Carthaginian general, Hannibal, tempted a much larger Roman army into a fateful advance, and then enveloped and annihilated it with a smaller force. Out of a Roman army of 70,000 men, no more than a few thousand escaped. It was said that after many hours of dispatching the Romans Hannibal’s soldiers grew so tired that the fight went out of them. In their weariness they granted the last broken and bedraggled Romans their lives…
Let us pray that the US sailors who are unlucky enough to be on duty in the Persian Gulf when the shooting starts can escape the fate of the Roman army at Cannae. The odds will be heavily against them, however, because they will face the same type of danger, tantamount to envelopment. The US ships in the Gulf will already have come within range of the Sunburn missiles and the even more-advanced SS-NX-26 Yakhonts missiles, also Russian-made (speed: Mach 2.9; range: 180 miles) deployed by the Iranians along the Gulf’s northern shore. Every US ship will be exposed and vulnerable. When the Iranians spring the trap, the entire lake will become a killing field.
Anti-ship cruise missiles are not new, as I’ve mentioned. Nor have they yet determined the outcome in a conflict. But this is probably only because these horrible weapons have never been deployed in sufficient numbers. At the time of the Falklands war the Argentine air force possessed only five Exocets, yet managed to sink two ships. With enough of them, the Argentineans might have sunk the entire British fleet, and won the war. Although we’ve never seen a massed attack of cruise missiles, this is exactly what the US Navy could face in the next war in the Gulf. Try and imagine it if you can: barrage after barrage of Exocet-class missiles, which the Iranians are known to possess in the hundreds, as well as the unstoppable Sunburn and Yakhonts missiles. The questions that our purblind government leaders should be asking themselves, today, if they value what historians will one day write about them, are two: how many of the Russian anti-ship missiles has Putin already supplied to Iran? And: How many more are currently in the pipeline? In 2001 Jane’s Defense Weekly reported that Iran was attempting to acquire anti-ship missiles from Russia. Ominously, the same report also mentioned that the more advanced Yakhonts missile was “optimized for attacks against carrier task forces.” Apparently its guidance system is “able to distinguish an aircraft carrier from its escorts.” The numbers were not disclosed…
The US Navy will come under fire even if the US does not participate in the first so-called surgical raids on Iran’s nuclear sites, that is, even if Israel goes it alone. Israel’s brand-new fleet of 25 F-15s (paid for by American taxpayers) has sufficient range to target Iran, but the Israelis cannot mount an attack without crossing US-occupied Iraqi air space. It will hardly matter if Washington gives the green light, or is dragged into the conflict by a recalcitrant Israel. Either way, the result will be the same. The Iranians will interpret US acquiescence as complicity, and, in any event, they will understand that the real fight is with the Americans. The Iranians will be entirely within their rights to counter-attack in self-defense. Most of the world will see it this way, and will support them, not America. The US and Israel will be viewed as the aggressors, even as the unfortunate US sailors in harm’s way become cannon fodder. In the Gulf’s shallow and confined waters evasive maneuvers will be difficult, at best, and escape impossible. Even if US planes control of the skies over the battlefield, the sailors caught in the net below will be hard-pressed to survive. The Gulf will run red with American blood…
From here, it only gets worse. Armed with their Russian-supplied cruise missiles, the Iranians will close the lake’s only outlet, the strategic Strait of Hormuz, cutting off the trapped and dying Americans from help and rescue. The US fleet massing in the Indian Ocean will stand by helplessly, unable to enter the Gulf to assist the survivors or bring logistical support to the other US forces on duty in Iraq. Couple this with a major new ground offensive by the Iraqi insurgents, and, quite suddenly, the tables could turn against the Americans in Baghdad. As supplies and ammunition begin to run out, the status of US forces in the region will become precarious. The occupiers will become the besieged…
With enough anti-ship missiles, the Iranians can halt tanker traffic through Hormuz for weeks, even months. With the flow of oil from the Gulf curtailed, the price of a barrel of crude will skyrocket on the world market. Within days the global economy will begin to grind to a halt. Tempers at an emergency round-the-clock session of the UN Security Council will flare and likely explode into shouting and recriminations as French, German, Chinese and even British ambassadors angrily accuse the US of allowing Israel to threaten world order. But, as always, because of the US veto the world body will be powerless to act...
America will stand alone, completely isolated. Yet, despite the increasingly hostile international mood, elements of the US media will spin the crisis very differently here at home, in a way that is sympathetic to Israel. Members of Congress will rise to speak in the House and Senate, and rally to Israel’s defense, while blaming the victim of the attack, Iran. Fundamentalist Christian talk show hosts will proclaim the historic fulfillment of biblical prophecy in our time, and will call upon the Jews of Israel to accept Jesus into their hearts; meanwhile, urging the president to nuke the evil empire of Islam. From across America will be heard histrionic cries for fresh reinforcements, even a military draft. Patriots will demand victory at any cost. Pundits will scream for an escalation of the conflict.
A war that ostensibly began as an attempt to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons will teeter on the brink of their use…
Conclusion
Friends, we must work together to prevent such a catastrophe. We must stop the next Middle East war before it starts. The US government must turn over to the United Nations the primary responsibility for resolving the deepening crisis in Iraq, and, immediately thereafter, withdraw US forces from the country. We must also prevail upon the Israelis to sign the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and open all of their nuclear sites to IAEA inspectors. Only then can serious talks begin with Iran and other states to establish a nuclear weapon free zone (NWFZ) in the Mid East –– so essential to the region’s long-term peace and security.
* * *
Mark Gaffney’s first book, Dimona the Third Temple? (1989), was a pioneering study of Israel’s nuclear weapons program. Mark’s articles about the Mid-East and proliferation issues have appeared in the Middle East Policy Journal, Washington Report On Middle East Affairs, the Earth Island Journal, The Oregonian, the Daily Californian, and have been posted on numerous web sites, especially Counterpunch.org. Mark’s 2003 paper Will Iran Be Next? can be viewed at < www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/iran.htm> Mark’s newest book, Gnostic Secrets of the Naassenes, was released by Inner Traditions Press in May 2003. Email <Mhgaffney@aol.com> For more information go to www.GnosticSecrets.com | |  | | Alpha | | Posted: Sat Oct 30, 2004 10:01 am Post subject: Terribly Convenient Timing: Osama bin Laden, He's Back |
| From: "Couples Company"
Subject: Terribly Convenient Timing: Osama bin Laden, He's Back
Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 21:03:10 -0700
Was today insane or what? You know I'll fine tune this over the next several days as new information becomes available:)
Since this is breaking news, any new info I should include or facts now disproven, let me know. Enjoy
http://www.couplescompany.com/Features/Politics/2004/BinLaden.htm
COMMENTARY
Terribly Convenient Timing: Osama bin Laden
He's Back
By Laura Dawn Lewis
On October 29, 2004 Osama bin Laden, via a professionally shot video tape finally stated he ordered 9/11 and further clarified that his assault on the US will not stop until US foreign policy in the Middle East changes. He is quite clear; his beef with the US is what we are doing, not what we are. This position, objecting to US foreign policy remains consistent with interviews he did in 1996 and 1998 with US Media, where he stated the same objections.
This well-timed tape along with its effectiveness at vilifying anyone looking for diplomatic solutions just made the only just and humane resolution impossible insuring this "war" goes on indefinitely
US Policy is defined as: Israel/Palestine, ending the US support of apartheid and ethnic cleansing the United States funds, supports and diplomatically protects from International law; invading countries that did not attack us on false pretense and an end to shielding the governments of Saudi Arabia and other regimes hurting their people. Nearly 70% of the world's people agree that US foreign policy is the problem and cite this as why they are angry with Americans. Some polls have shown this as high as 90%. Americans by comparison remain largely oblivious. Of course bin Laden stated nothing about hating our "Freedom" or that we are "Infidels" which is also consistent with previous interviews. In fact he mocked the Bush Administration's attempt to paint his objectives in such simplistic terms worthy of the kindergarten corner.
Excerpts from the Tape:
"We decided to destroy towers in America," bin Laden said, referring to the World Trade Center.
"God knows that it had not occurred to our mind to attack the towers, but after our patience ran out and we saw the injustice and inflexibility of the American-Israeli alliance toward our people in Palestine and Lebanon, this came to my mind," he said.
In his statement, Bin Laden accused President Bush of "misleading" the American people since the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
"Your security is not in the hands of (Democratic candidate John) Kerry or Bush or Al Qaeda. Your security is in your own hands," bin Laden said.
"To the U.S. people, my talk is to you about the best way to avoid another disaster," he said.
"I tell you: security is an important element of human life and free people do not give up their security."
"If Bush says we hate freedom, let him tell us why we didn't attack Sweden, for example. It is known that those who hate freedom do not have dignified souls, like those of the 19 blessed ones," he said, referring to the 19 hijackers.
"We fought you because we are free .. and want to regain freedom for our nation. As you undermine our security we undermine yours."
"Despite entering the fourth year after Sept. 11, Bush is still deceiving you and hiding the truth from you and therefore the reasons are still there to repeat what happened (with new attacks)," Bin Laden added.
Bin Laden also said that Bush's reaction toward the Sept. 11 attacks was slow which gave the hijackers the time they needed to carry out the attacks.
Al-Jazeera 10/29/2004
View the 18 Minute Broadcast
Unlike the discredited Bin Laden tape of December 2001, there is no reason to suspect this latest tape is not genuine, (though rumors our flying that it is not) Bin Laden's statements are consistent with previous statements on PBS, (The discredited version of 2001 was not) and the person on the tape appears to be him; the quality is good and clear.
We'll concede this is the real thing. The next logical question is, why wait three years and nearly two months to claim responsibility September 11, 2001, four days before the election? That has been one of the main sources of doubt and contention with journalists like myself digging, questioning and increasingly becoming alarmed at the inaccuracies and propaganda whipping Americans into a all-out blood lust fear inspired, blindly patriotic frenzy. This tape furthers this emotional smorgasbord, making it awfully convenient on several levels.
John Kerry made a big deal about the fact that we invaded Afghanistan to "Hunt down Bin Laden" then took our eye off the ball so we could invade what we really wanted, Iraq. Cheney made it clear within 5 hours of the planes hitting on 9/11, Afghanistan was a convenience, scribbling a note insisting they find some way to tie Saddam to 9/11. (The Movie Hijacking Catastrophe goes into this in depth). In fact this administration used bin Laden as long as they needed to and then substituted Saddam changing everyone's focus.
This is the first tape in almost three years. Nothing, no appearances, messages, taunts...nothing for three years and now last week we have an obvious American accented "terrorist" promising worse than 9/11. Today Bin Laden suddenly pops up?
Most disturbing, bin Laden articulates what the peace movement and anti-war movements have said, "It's our foreign policy stupid", which is the problem and why terrorism targeted at US interests exists. There is no way around that. US Foreign Policy is the root cause of terrorism. Bush couldn't have asked for a better tool.
Bush and Kerry adamantly declared they will not "Be intimidated or influenced" by anything bin Laden says, suggests or intimates thus positioning anyone stating the problem is our foreign policy as "terrorist sympathizers" rather than rational human beings who object to breaking international law and discarding the constitution via acts considered war crimes when committed by any one other than the US or Israel. It kills the diplomatic solution and supports the force solution, the Bush Doctrine.
Bin Laden's objections to our foreign policy are legitimate. What we are doing by proxy in Palestine is wrong. Not my opinion, that is according to the Hague Resolutions, Geneva Conventions, Rome Statues, The United Nations, our own constitution and International law. For those using the God excuse, it's also against the teachings of the Gospels, which for Christians IS the final word of God and take precedence over all books of the Old Testament. That is another can of twisted worms that Bush's agenda distorted well.
What we are doing in Iraq is wrong. Again, not my opinion. That statement originates with the Hague Resolutions, the Geneva Conventions, Rome Statues, our own constitution and International law. Terrorism's defeat only occurs upon the removal its causes: Oppression, greed, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, occupation, colonization, conquest and invasion, not the branches or seeds illustrated by the people. Our policies cause terrorism both in Palestine and Iraq, and yes the two are intimately connected. Anything other than addressing the realities on the ground of these two policy nightmares feeds terrorism, creates more of these reasons and more baby bin Ladens. Simply put, unless you get the root, the weeds always grow back. We're dead heading by attacking the results of these policies, the terrorists. We're not pulling weeds out by the roots since we continue to fertilize the situations causing terror to grow in the first place.
Unfortunately, this tape provides fuel for Bush's objectives. Our "I'm never wrong and my actions are God inspired" President Bush and "me too" Kerry backed by warmongers and profiteers can now use any attempt addressing the causes of terrorism as being 'influenced by the terrorists'. This well-timed tape along with its effectiveness at vilifying anyone looking for diplomatic solutions eradicates humane resolutions, opting for the barbaric while effectively segregating those promoting diplomacy thus insuring this "war" goes on indefinitely. Concurrently it creates enough fear to insure the money keeps rolling in and the remaining portions of the PNAC plan, now known as the Bush Doctrine can continue to clear the Middle East of any person not 100% behind Israel or the US.
Fox News led the charge beginning at 5PM. O'Reilly set the pace, claiming Emen is siding with the terrorists and an anti-American sympathizer because he opposes the war? And people believe that. It only took one minute for O'Reilly to spin a 360. Not quite a record, but almost. A rap singer is a terrorist sympathizer because he opposes our invading countries that have not attacked us, killing over 100,000 civilians and basically raping their country? Has reason completely left the American mindset? By minute three Mr. O'Reilly insisted we are in World War III...against terrorism, forgetting that terrorism embodies a dynamic, non descript emotional adjective that sometimes serves as a verb or a noun but cannot be defined. Of course he's never explained how an army can fight an ever-changing idea that is a reaction and a tactic. Meanwhile 75% of the women in this country are terrified, just where the President wants them.
A Plea or a Warning?
The language of this statement caught my eye:
"Your security is not in the hands of Kerry or Bush or Al Qaeda. Your security is in your own hands," bin Laden said.
"To the U.S. people, my talk is to you about the best way to avoid another disaster," he said.
The tape is different in that it is appealing to the American people, What the tape says to me, reading between the lines is:
"Here's your chance America. We don't hate you. We hate what you're doing so we're giving you one last opportunity to change your ways. If you choose to continue killing us, our children, our culture and our faith, you leave us no choice but to fight back. Stop interfering with our ability to live and we'll stop interfering with you. If you don't, you have only yourselves to blame."
I see this as the moral equivalency of a clear conscience from bin Laden's point of view. A way of giving us one last chance to reverse this course. In his mind I'm believe he's saying,
"See I told the American people what they need to do in order to avoid being attacked. I'm not asking them to do anything illegal. I'm just asking them to stop doing what is illegal and return to the principles and values they pretend they espouse. And look, they don't care. They want to kill us. Therefore since they won't stop killing us and messing with our lives, they are not innocent any longer. Not their women. Not their children, none of them. Not innocent in God's eyes and not innocent in mine. They allowed this to happen therefore all are responsible."
Ominous, but I believe realistic.
bottom line
PRIMARILY: My questions show suspicion toward the timing. This administration, and as Kerry is a Senator I consider him part of it, finesses the American people and rarely tells the relevant truth. Cross reference Europe in the 1920's and 1930's and you see the same tactics, logic and agendas at work in the United States today.
Secondly: They've used 9/11 to strip us of our most personal rights and control the American people, basically taking our freedom and convincing us that the loss of freedoms is freedom. They've told us persons against pre-emptive strikes and our consistent violations of international law are unpatriotic, because we want to stop engaging in the policies that create terrorism.
Third: I find it strange that it took three years for bin Laden to claim responsibility for 9/11. Today is the first time; up until this point there was no concrete evidence. Now he's made it clear. Why now? I find it suspicious that he disappeared from consideration until Kerry pounded home the fact we used him to go to war and then changed our direction. He disappeared from the media, now he's back?
Extremely disturbing to me is the convenience of positioning the only sane resolution to ending this war, the addressing and reexamination of our foreign policy, as "intimidation" or caving to terrorists rather than diplomacy. This serves the agenda of those promoting this war by effectively silencing those of us seeking peaceful and humane resolutions inline with our constitution and international law.
Finally the most ominous, I suspect this tape is a gesture, a warning and a last opportunity for peace, which the bullheaded nature of our government now will never approach on the convenience of "being influenced by terrorists". You see with this, even those in the Arab world who may have sympathized with bin Laden's agenda but not his tactics, no longer need to feel guilty. Should another attack come they can say, "He gave the American people the chance to change this and they refused. Anything from this point forward is their own fault. They are all guilty"
The cost of war coming home with the majority of our reservists deployed eight thousand miles away, that is a very frightening thought. But of late nothing surprises me. We can create a win/win here and eliminate terrorism. But to so that we must step out of the fear and actually begin to think. <END>
Copyright © Couples Company, Inc. 1999-2004
All Rights Reserved
http://www.couplescompany.com/Features/Politics/2004/BinLaden.htm | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Tue Nov 02, 2004 5:07 pm Post subject: Iran warns of $US 100 oil price |
| The Zionist (Israel firster) JINSA/CSP/PNAC Neoconservatives (most of whom are racist Jewish Zionist extremists shown at http://www.nowarforisrael.com) are pushing for the following (so it will be them to blame when the US/global economy is again hampered by US ZOG -Zionist Occupied Government- via support of Israel (see www.wrmea.com as well):
http://theaustralian.com.au
Iran warns of $US 100 oil price
From Laurent Lozano in Tehran
02 November 2004
A TOP aide to Iran's supreme leader today declared Tehran did not fear being taken to the UN security council over its nuclear program and warned any resulting oil embargo would see world prices top $US100 a barrel.
Ali Akbar Nateq-Nuri, one of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's closest advisers, dismissed as "ridiculous" some suggestions from Europe aimed at persuading Tehran to end uranium enrichment to avoid being summoned by the security council.
But Iranian government spokesman Abdollah Ramezanzadeh said Tehran saw "positive signals" from the three European countries - Britain, France and Germany - with whom it has been negotiating to try to close its file with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
"If we had not received positive signals, we would not continue negotiations," he said.
Mr Ramezanzadeh also said he was optimistic that negotiations, which resume this week in Paris, would end in an agreement. "There is little chance that the negotiations will end with nothing."
But he, too, repeated that Iran was prepared for all possibilities and would "stand up against threats". He warned, too, that taking Tehran to the security council and possible sanctions would affect more than Iran.
"We must not fear that such a decision will only affect one of the parties," he said, referring to Iran and echoing Mr Nateq-Nuri's words.
Washington charges that Iran is using its nuclear program as a cover for efforts to develop a nuclear bomb, allegations vehemently denied by Tehran which also points out it has the right, under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes.
But under international pressure, Tehran now has to prove to the UN's nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, that it is not pursuing the bomb or risk being hauled in front of the security council for possible sanctions.
Overnight, hundreds of Iranian university students created a human chain around the Islamic Republic's atomic organisation headquarters backing the resumption of uranium enrichment.
"Enrichment is our natural right," they shouted, along with the habitual "Death to America".
Earlier, Iranian lawmakers passed a Bill backing the resumption of uranium enrichment, as the Government left the door open for further negotiations with Europe over the controversial practice.
Mr Nateq-Nuri, in an interview with Iran News, said he saw no reason to fear the UN.
"Since our position is logical, right and consistent with the NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) and the international law, we do not fear the security council," he said.
Questioned about a possible UN embargo on Tehran's oil exports, the former parliamentary speaker said: "The big loser will be them, not us.
"If an oil embargo is slapped on Iran, the price of oil will exceed $US100 per barrel, with a potential to paralyse the West's economy."
World oil prices are near recent record levels at $US50 a barrel.
Mr Nateq-Nuri added: "If the No.2 producer within OPEC is prevented from selling its oil on the international market, it would spell disaster for all consuming nations.
"I believe even if we are referred to the UN security council, an oil embargo will not be placed on us right away."
Last week, Iran's influential former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said the country would continue talks with Europe over its nuclear activities, but reject any threats aimed at depriving the country of peaceful nuclear technology.
"We agree to continue negotiations within the framework of international rules, but if the Europeans want to use threats, there is no more place for negotiations," he said on state radio. | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2004 6:57 pm Post subject: Osama Votes Bush, Says Fisk |
| Osama Votes Bush, Says Fisk
Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 10:05:53 -0500 From: "MER - Mid-East Realities -
MiddleEast.Org" <MERL@MiddleEast.Org>
Osama Votes Bush Says Fisk
... Robert Fisk is the chief Middle East correspondent for the London
Independent and one of the most knowledgeable, insightful, and
courageous western journalists about the Middle East. He was
exclusively
interviewed in 1996 by MERTV for a series of four half-hour programs
which we will soon Internet broadcast. He was interviewed yesterday on
the 'Democracy Now' program about the recent speech by Osama Bin Laden
to the 'people of America', about Yasser Arafat, and about the war in
Iraq.
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/01/1513254
AMY GOODMAN: Robert Fisk joins us on the line right now, the chief
Middle East correspondent for The London Independent, author of, Pity
the Nation: The Abduction of Lebanon. Welcome to Democracy Now!,
Robert.
ROBERT FISK: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: Your reaction to the Bin Laden tape.
ROBERT FISK: Well, it is clearly timed for the election, and indeed it,
looks to me like he's voting for Bush. Although he tells the American
people, it is in their hands, it is not Bush or Kerry. He has always
had
this notion. I remember in 1996, I thought it was outlandish, I didn't
put it in my report of my meeting, he had this idea that the American
people would shrug off the American government, and would -- their
individual states of the union would become individual countries, a bit
like Yugoslavia has now become. I said to him at the time, I don't
think
you seem to realize the American people vote for the government in the
United States, which they don't of course in Saudi Arabia and most
other
states in the Middle East. And he just seemed to let that go. He was
obsessed at the time with Somalia and how the Americans were paper
tigers there. I must say when I read that he was telling the American
people that Bush couldn't protect them, he didn't do very well in
protecting the Afghanistan from the Americans, did he? But no, this is
clearly Osama Bin Laden coming back into the picture. You have to
realize that he is, and this is a fact I can promise you, he keeps up
with television news reports, writing, and so on. So, he knows what is
being said. The idea of thinking that he is out of touch, he might have
been many years ago but not now. He's not a -- an internationally
shrewd
figure. He has never traveled very much although oddly enough, he has
been to Sweden. I did notice that reference to Sweden in the text. He
has actually been there, but he does understand what's going on in the
rest of the world. So, therefore, this was a clear attempt to come in.
My belief is that he would calculate correctly, that a tape in which
there's a further threat against the United States by the people who --
well, he actually says himself, he admits it the idea occurred to me of
the twin towers and the international crimes against humanity of
September 11, 2001. I'm sure he realizes that further threats are more
likely to help Bush than Kerry and what Osama Bin Laden wants now, of
course, is a president to be elected who will further mire the country
into the Middle East swamp, and cause, of course more American
casualties, which Bush will surely do. So, I think that this is
probably
Osama Bin Laden's vote for George W. Bush.
AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to Robert Fisk, who interviewed Osama Bin
Laden twice.
ROBERT FISK: Three times, actually.
AMY GOODMAN: Three times? When did you interview him and how does he
compare in how he looks to when you interviewed him?
ROBERT FISK: Well, it's an odd thing to say, and I noticed this before
the American bombardment of Afghanistan. When I used to see him, he was
always dressed very humbly, in a white Jallabia, a cheap cotton gown
and
Keffiyeh headdress like any Palestinian or Gulf Arab might wear. But
more and more now he appears, when he does appear in videos, in sort of
gold-fringed robes. And I wonder if that is not a certain amount of
vanity crept into his personality. After all, he is a fairly well known
guy now. And I wonder if this isn’t ? if I could see something of the
Mahdi there, the person who began to believe he was a personal sort of
interpreter for some higher being. It's interesting that he constantly
wants to be portrayed as did before as being in a cave. Of course, the
prophet Mohammad lived in a cave. And indeed he was on a mountain
outcrop when he first received the message from God. And I wonder what
is actually going on not politically over the United States or attacks,
but I wonder what's going none the Bin Laden mind. That's not the first
time he has had such a smart gown on. He was wearing it like that all
in
2000. But before that he was a much more humble figure, but I suppose
could you say that, before he probably thought he had more to be humble
about.
AMY GOODMAN: And yet interestingly, he did not make any reference to
the
Koran.
ROBERT FISK: Well, I think that the tape was slightly longer than the
one that you have seen. And I believe he does make reference to the
Koran in the full half hour tape. You thought it was 18 minutes. But it
hasn't all been aired. I have spoken to the people who got the original
tape and there are a number of Koranic expressions. That's not quite
right, but it is not your fault that you got it wrong.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to read you to Walter Cronkite's comments. I
don't
know if you heard about them.
ROBERT FISK: Well, I know who Walter Cronkite is but I don't know about
his comments.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, he said this on Larry King. He said, so now the
question is basically right now, how will this affect the election. And
I have a feeling it could tilt the election a bit. In fact, I'm
inclined
to think that Karl Rove, the political manager at the White House, who
is a very clever man, he probably set up Bin Laden to this thing. The
advantage to the Republican side is to get rid of, as a principle
subject of the campaigns right now, get rid of the whole problem of the
Al-Qaqaa explosive dump.
ROBERT FISK: I don't really think it's worth much comment. I know the
timing and the dates when this tape originally arrived in Islamabad. I
don't think anything could have been -- it wasn’t -- for example it
didn't arrive five weeks ago and was then held up until the right
moment
in the election if that's what Cronkite was suggesting. I don’t think
there is any -- yeah, I think that's a conspiratorial theory. There's a
lot of things in this, which suggest that Bin Laden is oddly enough
actually trying to torture Americans. You see, at the very beginning,
when he says, Bush is still misleading you and misinforming you by not
telling you the truth. The odd thing about that is an awful lot of
people think that Bin Laden is quite correct and accurate in saying
that. He is not correct in much else, but in that he is. He never was
of
course in Beirut in 1982, you know, he keeps going back to the Lebanese
invasion. Although he certainly would have seen pictures. And I saw the
real thing in Beirut, whole apartment blocks crumbling to the ground
with all of the occupants inside, with -- after the Israelis had bombed
the buildings from the air, claiming that “terrorists” were inside,
when
in fact in almost all cases, I went to, they were just civilians
families, babies, children, who of course were flattened like pancakes
underneath this mass of concrete and iron. They looked frankly when I
saw them very much like the dead looked of September 11. So, I'm not
making a dark comparison. That's what Bin Laden is doing. But I
understand what he is talking about when he talks about the destroyed
towers in Lebanon. The odd thing is that there's a slightly wrong
translation from the Arabic. He says that, you know, he never thought
of
an attack on the twin towers in New York. What he actually says in the
Arabic was, I had never thought of doing it until I saw what happened
in
Lebanon. Then the idea occurred to me. In other words, he's saying that
the inspiration came from Israel's invasion rather than him sitting
down
and saying there's a good target. I'm not sure I believe him because
it's quite clear that the targets, which were chosen were to represent
finance and the military. And I -- if indeed Ziad Jarrah’s plane, the
Lebanese hijacker, I would have thought that would have gone for the
legislature and Capitol Hill. Interesting enough, Ziad Jarrah himself
was in the Beirut siege and his family who I met managed to get him
out.
He was a small boy at the time, fascinated by airplanes and flying. He
was just a schoolboy. Actually attending a Christian school. And his
father told me that after he had gotten out of Beirut and he had seen
the air attacks, he refused to play with his sister in the park or go
to
the swings because he said, what had happened in Beirut was too
serious.
Of course, he naturally occurred to me when I heard Bin Laden speaking,
that if he had met Ziad Jarrah, and I rather suspect he had, Jarrah
himself may have given his childhood memories of what happened in
Lebanon to Bin Laden, but that might sound as conspiratorial as Walter
Cronkite. I don’t know.
AMY GOODMAN: Robert Fisk, Middle East correspondent for The
Independent,
we have to break, when we come back I want to ask you about Yasser
Arafat, his health and the significance of his going to France, and his
leadership in Palestine and Israel's struggle. And I want to ask you
about the deadliest weekend we have seen in Iraq over the last six
months for U.S. soldiers. And then the study, 100,000 Iraqis dead.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: Robert Fisk on the line us with, Middle East correspondent
for The Independent. You wrote a piece on Saturday, Robert, the title,
“The Truth is that Yasser Arafat died years ago. He married the
revolution. And in the end, he became a little dictator, falsely
promising democracy.” Your response to the latest news of Yasser Arafat
and his health?
ROBERT FISK: Well, he has been -- he's died so many times, hasn't he?
We
were told originally, he died in one of the air raids in Beirut in
1982,
and he didn't. Then he had a crash in the Libyan desert in his plane
and
he was okay, but the pilot was killed. Then he had a blood clot in the
brain on the way to Baghdad from Amman and Jordanian doctors saved him.
This time, of course, it clearly is serious. Although, I mean in a way,
when you look at it symbolically, this old man like an elderly owl who
has been trapped inside this rubble for three years, still talking
about
going to Jerusalem and leading his people to a new state, and so on,
peace of the brave, and then eventually, he's hauled out on a stretcher
looking like a skeleton and taken off to a foreign country from which
he
may never return alive. It's not the way in which leaders should go,
but
the problem is, you see, all along, he never allowed a new leadership
to
take shape around him. He was a corrupt man. He is a corrupt man. He
won't be doing much corruption for a while now, but all this time, and
this is the great tragedy of the Palestinians, apart from the fact
their
living under occupation, which is a greater tragedy for them, is that
this is a man who didn't allow young and educated Palestinians to take
their place in a new political entity. If you look at the pictures or
look at any of the pictures that you see of Arafat outside the Mukada
building in Ramallah, you look at the pictures of him coming out when
he
was led out of the building and put in the helicopter, all the men
around him are paunchy, 50-60 year olds from the days of fighting the
Israelis in Lebanon in the 80’s. Whenever a bright young spokesman has
popped up on television from the Palestinian side, they are being
slapped out and the old men are being brought back. Like, for example,
the Palestinian representative of the United Nations, who is almost
incomprehensible on television or radio. Especially when the Israelis
put up extremely eloquent and well educated young people to represent
their country. So he's -- you know, I have said many times, even Arafat
as a physical existence, that's not a face that you would see on a
student dorm window along with Che Guevara or even Castro. In a sense,
he represents by his continuity, by his desire to represent the
revolution, to be married to the revolution, as he put it, which is
wife
found out what that meant. It has a consistency and a kind of courage
to
it, but he had everything wrong with the Arabs in the sense that he
turned into just another Arab dictator, which is exactly what I think
the Israelis wanted. They want an obedient dictator to manage the
occupation for them. It was interesting that when the second Intifada
broke out, the Israelis asked the question, can Arafat control his own
people, which of course was dutifully taken up, the Israelis set the
agenda for CNN and the BBC, who said, can care fat control his people,
having forgotten that the principle behind the Oslo agreement was not
that Arafat would control his people but that he would represent them.
And in a sense he does represent them, because in the streets there are
people who say we need control, you see? One of the great sicknesses I
think, the cancers of the Arab world is the desire for people to put a
form of authoritarian regime over the freedoms of the kind of democracy
that we think we live in. I would have to say, however, that if he was
an Iraqi, living in the hell of Iraq at the moment, I might well look
back wishfully on the terrible days of Saddam compared to the
infinitely
more violent and dangerous days today.
AMY GOODMAN: Speaking of which, your latest question, what's happening
in Iraq right now, as well as the capture, the kidnapping of Margaret
Hassan, and the threatened, what will happen to her, the killing of the
U.S. soldiers, and the 100,000 report, which we're going to talk about
in a minute, of casualties in Iraq--Iraqi civilians.
ROBERT FISK: Well, you know, the problem is that although some of us,
when we go to Iraq are still moving around, most of my colleagues, and
I
don't blame them at all, scarcely leave their hotels tells because it's
too dangerous. We still have the two French journalists missing.
Although mostly, I understand they're still alive. We have had
journalists murdered; quite a few of them. So, when you talk like this,
for example, I just listened to your questions. Excuse me. We are
constantly faced by this kind of theatrical facade. Who has Margaret
Hassan? We don't know. I know Margaret very well, but there's no claim
from a particular group. There are no armed men standing in the
background with the Islamic banners. Who took her? Why? We hear eight
marines were killed. On operational duties. What does that mean? Were
they ambushed? Were they in a tank that blew up? Were they in a
helicopter that crashed? What does it mean? We hear 100,000 casualties.
Well, there are two ways of getting a casualty rate, an Iraq casualty
rate in Iraq. One is to go around all of the scholarly notebooks of
doctors and morticians who wrote down five more bodies at 2:17 p.m.
this
afternoon. To go to all of the hospitals, to go the ministry of health
and when we've done that, and of course, the associated press had a
pretty good go at this before most of Iraq went outside of government
control, we came up with a figure that got to around 20,000 or 30,000
Iraqis. The figure of 100,000 has been extrapolated from a series of
interviews in specific locations based upon percentages. In other
words,
if they went to five houses in a street and found that 20 more people
had died of violence in the previous year, then they would extrapolate
out from that increase in violence and what it meant. But the 100,000
is
not a record of actual deaths. It's an extrapolation of percentages put
forward in what is in effect a kind of opinion poll. It may be less
than
100,000. It may be considerably less, but I think when you get to the
point where you are sort of saying, "my god it wasn't 30,000 but
100,000," you are beginning to forget the individual and it's the
individual Iraqi who is suffering every day, every day, and there are
many, many deaths will never be recorded simply because in a small
village out in the desert, they will bury the person quickly and the
authorities essentially have no control there anymore. There's no one
to
take down deaths and no one to notify. In Baghdad you still have to
notify deaths. So you can go down to the Baghdad city mortuary, and I
actually go there and meet the doctors and morticians. I actually stand
there among the corpses and we can count them each day. Now that I can
do. I can tell you, on a certain day 27 people were brought with
gunshot
wounds into this hospital. And I can do all the hospitals in Baghdad.
But I can't travel to Najaf and Samara and Fallujah and count there,
too. So there is and there will be no precise statistic. That of course
is precisely the way the United States and Britain and the American
military and America's appointed Iyad Allawi, so-called interim prime
minister, that's the way they want it.
(7) Soros undone by his greed; Chossudovsky wrong amout Osama
Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 14:51:27 -0000 From: "Rowan Berkeley"
<rowan_berkeley@yahoo.co.uk>
1. Soros
George Soros' statements about the iniquity of the Bush Babies would be
more worthy of interest if he had not himself taken the opportunity of
the Balkan Wars to seize control of valuable mineral producing areas:
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/szamuely/soros.htm
2. Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky fails to understand either the limits of covert
action or the psychology of UBL. As regards the first, it is simply
implausible to suggest that the UBL videos should have been produced
directly by CIA and co., just as the film that claimed the moon
landings
were faked in a US desert was implausible. There is fakery in the
covert
ops world, but it isn't this simple. UBL is genuinely offering an
explanation and a last chance to repent to the USA and its allies,
secure in the knowledge that the offer will only make them more
determined to ignore or misunderstand what he says and pursue their
policies with all the more blind fervour. There is no contradiction
here
: it is a Qur'anic concpet, that, when the deniers and defiers of God
are warned of the consequences of their acts, they become more
determined to deny and defy God as a result, yet one must warn them in
any case, it is an obligation of honour.
At the same time, it is undeniable that UBL and Bush reinforce one
another and this does not imply that UBL is a fake. It simply is the
case that each seeks a global confrontation with the other. In this
sense, and in this sense only, UBL and the other Qutbist Guerrilla
leaders are 'objective American assets'.
Let me make one final suggestion : in my view the purpose the the
prisoner abuses committed by the US is not to find guerrillas, but to
create guerrillas, though the immediate abusers may have no conscious
awareness of this fact. The more guerrilla opposition the US meets, the
more of a carte blanche it gains for its own atrocities. This is true
on
the large scale, vis-a-vis- UBL, and on the small scale of Abu Ghraib.
Again, this makes the two sides useful to one another, "objective
allies" if you like - not paid double agents or conscious provocateurs
in the spy-versus-spy sense that Michel seems to be pursuing.
Incidentally, I do wish Michel would honour his obligations to those
like me who have paid a year in advance for the Global Outlook
Magazine,
by the way - he is now claiming he cannot afford to supply a year's
worth of pre-paid issues of it (already subscribed in advance at $C23
p.a.) to anyone who doesn't wish to pay an extra $C95 p.a. - which
means
that he has extracted the first $23 from me, and supplied nothing
whatsoever in return (except conspiracy theories on the web).
http://www.globalresearch.ca/MEMBER.html
(8) American Board of Rabbis condemns France for hosting Arafat,
demands
ban on French products
Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 15:11:38 -0000 From: "Rowan Berkeley"
<rowan_berkeley@yahoo.co.uk> To: "Peter Myers" <myers@cyberone.com.au>
In an unprecedented and extraordinary attack on France, the American
Board of Rabbis has demanded a worldwide ban on French products. The
New
York-based association which promotes Jewish unity abroad voted
unanimously to call on Jewish people around the world to boycott
everything French: goods, services, and even the language. The board is
outraged at France's providing hospital treatment for Palestinian
leader
Yasser Araft, who it describes as a 'master terrorist', responsible for
'the murder of thousands of infants, children, women, and men.'
Association President, Rabbi Mordechai Yitzchok Friedman, said
'France’s
harboring of Arafat, is consistent with its tradition of anti-Semitism
and anti-American activities.” The Rabbi said the hosting of Yasser
Arafat was an act of terrorism and was in breach of the U.S.'s Global
Anti-Semitism Bill, under which the U.S. State Department is to monitor
global anti-Semitism and annually rate countries on their treatment of
Jews. Rabbi Friedman continued his extraordinary attack by referring to
the Book of Genesis, Chapter 12, Verse 3, claiming, 'God will curse
those who curse the Jewish People, and so shall the people and country
of France be cursed.” Arafat meantime is recovering in a hospital near
Paris after being flown there from Ramallah via Jordan for emergency
medical treatment. Aides say doctors have ruled out leukaemia and are
testing the ailing 75-year old leader for a possible virus.
http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=1fdfaca99c9e3050
(9) H. G. Wells & the greens
Date: Tue, 02 Nov 2004 11:41:49 -0500 From: aelewis@provide.net To:
myers@cyberone.com.au
> H. G. Wells as a Green ...
> (1) Common slogans - the Greens are still using the slogan One >
World
or None.
No greens that I know use that slogan (and I know a LOT). Some greens
do
have a globalistic orientation, it is true. Most local/in-the-trenches
greens are concerned with local issues. They may give lip-service to
the
"think globally" rhetoric, but it has little purchase in practice.
> (2) Common concern with reducing the human impact, and > especially
the human population.
Almost no Greens of my acquaintance (after YEARS of heavy participation
on their discussion boards) have any interest whatever in reducing the
human population. In fact, when I raise the issue, it is usually
shouted-down. I've almost been kicked off boards for this.
"Common concern with reducing the human impact"? Certainly! What sane
and informed person is not so concerned?
> (3) Common promotion of World Government initiatives like the > World
Court and Kyoto Protocol.
Mixed bag. There is some support for World-Court-like initiatives among
greens, and more support for Kyoto. The support for Kyoto is not rooted
so much in visions of a globalistic world state; it is rooted in an
awareness of the environmental and resource problems that will in our
lifetimes result in catastrophe, if they go unchecked. SOMETHING has to
be done. What is it? (i.e. cut them some slack, for gosh sakes)
> (4) Common promotion of "minority" politics. Today, the Greens > are
the force behind Gay Marriage (which you have declared > yourself in
favour of). More at > http://users.cyberone.com.au/myers/szilard.html
Yes, among the lefty greens there is strong support for minorities, gay
rights, etc.
I cannot recall endorsing gay marriage specifically. What I endorse is
MARRIAGE, and I would like the state to stay out of it. (In other
words,
marry as you please; it is none of my business.)
> In short, the Green Left today is the vehicle of the World >
Government movement, which tried to establish "World Unity" > after
both
World Wars.
This is oversimplified but contains a grain of truth.
> Wells was connected with it, right from the start. He was one > of
the
creators of Wilson's 14 Points. And a craftsman of the > attempt to
make
the League of Nations a World Government (with > a World Army, & World
Court) in 1919.
Yes, and most greens, confronted with Wellsian and Wilsonian ideas,
would reject most of them, with exceptions.
Your view is too categorical, too fixed. You fail to see the nuances.
You seem anxious to pigeon-hole the greens, and you are not seeing what
a large, diverse movement it is. I speak, as I think you know, as one
who has been severely critical of the greens, so this is not just a
blind apology for them.
(10) H. G. Wells as a Green
Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 15:57:18 EST From: ECONORTH@aol.com
I also disagree somewhat. The U.S. Greens are adamantly opposed to
NAFTA
and WTO and all such corporate-led globalization schemes. That and
their, at least, lip-service to decentralization would make them poor
allies of H. G. Wells.. On the other hand, they take many social
positions that are trotskyist: gay marriage, radical feminism, etc. The
Greens here seem to be confused about what they stand for, and that may
be why they are in decline.
(11) green decentralism does not necessarily contradict a world
government
Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 17:03:49 +0700 From: Brian Salter
<bsalter@gol.com>
to add another note to your commentary, green decentralism does not
necessarily contradict a world government / world order agenda.
consider what david ray griffin has to say from his pro-world
government
viewpoint, in his essay, "Global Government: Objections Considered"
(published in "Towards Genuine Global Governance", ed. harris & yunker,
1999):
"...political and economic decentralization of the type that is desired
can occur only in tandem with a type of centralization... With regard
to
the Daly-Cobb vision of economic decentralization, in which each
community becomes as self-sufficient as possible so that trade is
minimized rather than maximized, this total reversal of the course we
have been on for the past several hundred years, is veritably
inconceivable apart from a global government that would madate and
provide policy guidelines for such a change. The kind of centralization
involved in the form of global government envisaged here is, then, not
the antithesis of the desirable kind of economic and political
decentralization, but its precondition."
i tend to think that griffin is right. in my experience, there are few
radical decentralists who seem to have thought through these sort of
implications.
--
Peter Myers, 21 Blair St, Watson ACT 2602, Australia ph +61 2 62475187
http://users.cyberone.com.au/myers Mirror:
http://mailstar.net/index.html
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To unsubscribe, reply with "unsubscribe" in the subject line; allow 1
day. | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Tue Nov 16, 2004 9:13 am Post subject: Bin Laden Expert Steps Forward |
| Bin Laden Expert Steps Forward
Ex-CIA Agent Sizes Up Osama
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/11/12/60minutes/main655407.shtml
Nov. 14, 2004
Excerpt from CBS-TV 60 minutes news transcript:
Right or wrong, he says Muslims are beginning to view the United States
as a
colonial power with Israel as its surrogate, and with a military
presence in
three of the holiest places in Islam: the Arabian peninsula, Iraq, and
Jerusalem. And he says it is time to review and debate American policy
in the region,
even our relationship with Israel.
"No one wants to abandon the Israelis. But I think the perception is,
and I
think it's probably an accurate perception, that the tail is leading
the dog -
that we are giving the Israelis carte blanche ability to exercise
whatever
they want to do in their area," says Scheuer. "And if that's what the
American
people want, then that's what the policy should be, of course. But the
idea that
anything in the United States is too sensitive to discuss or too
dangerous to
discuss is really, I think, absurd."
Start:
One of the Central Intelligence Agency's foremost experts on Osama bin
Laden
has stepped out of the shadows and joined the public debate over past
mistakes
and future strategy in the war on terror.
Michael Scheuer is the senior intelligence analyst who created and
advised a
secret CIA unit for tracking and eliminating bin Laden since 1996. He's
also
been at the center of a battle between the CIA and the White House over
Mideast
policy and the war on terror.
What is new for Scheuer - who resigned from the intelligence agency on
Friday
after 22 years - is commenting by name. This summer, he authored a
book,
Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror, under the
pen name
Anonymous.
The book, written with the CIA's blessing, is critical of the Bush
administration's counterterrorism policy, and was viewed by some at the
White House as a
thinly veiled attempt by the CIA to undermine the president's
reelection.
In his first television interview, Scheuer talked to Correspondent
Steve Kroft
about his frustrations in the war on terror and his assessment of bin
Laden's plans - including the al Qaeda founder's interest in nuclear
weapons.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Former CIA agent Michael Scheuer spoke to 60 Minutes in his first
television
interview out of the shadows.
After a 22-year career as a spy charged with keeping secrets, Scheuer
decided
it was more important to join the public debate on how to best attack
Osama
bin Laden and al Qaeda.
"His genius lies in his ability to isolate a few American policies that
are
widely hated across the Muslim world. And that growing hatred is going
to yield
growing violence," says Scheuer. "Our leaders continue to say that
we're
making strong headway against this problem. And I think we are not."
In 1996, at a time when little was known about the wealthy Saudi, other
than
he was suspected of financing terrorism, Scheuer was assigned to create
a bin
Laden desk at the CIA.
"The uniqueness of the unit was more or less that it was focused on a
single
individual. It was really the first time the agency had done that sort
of
effort," says Scheuer.
Did he try to figure out where bin Laden was? "Where he was, where his
cells
were, where his logistical channels were," says Scheuer. "How he
communicated.
Who his allies were. Who donated to them... I think it's fair to say
the
entire range of sources were brought to bear."
Codenamed "Alec," the unit was originally made up of about a dozen
agents.
And in less than a year, they discovered that bin Laden was more than
some
wealthy Saudi throwing his money around - and that his organization,
known as al
Qaeda, was not a Muslim charity.
"We had found that he and al Qaeda were involved in an extraordinarily
sophisticated and professional effort to acquire weapons of mass
destruction. In
this case, nuclear material, so by the end of 1996, it was clear that
this was an
organization unlike any other one we had ever seen," says Scheuer.
Scheuer says his bosses at the CIA were initially skeptical of that
information. And that was just the beginning of his frustrations.
In a letter to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees earlier
this
year, Scheuer says his agents provided the U.S. government with about
ten
opportunities to capture bin Laden before Sept. 11, and that all of
them were re
jected.
One of the last proposals, which he described to the 9/11 Commission in
a
closed-door session, involved a cruise missile attack against a remote
hunting
camp in the Afghan desert, where bin Laden was believed to be
socializing with
members of the royal family from the United Arab Emirates.
Scheuer wanted to level the entire camp. "The world is lousy with Arab
princes," says Scheuer. "And if we could have got Osama bin Laden, and
saved at some
point down the road 3,000 American lives, a few less Arab princes would
have
been OK in my book."
"You couldn't have done this without killing an Arab prince," asks
Kroft.
"Probably not. Sister Virginia used to say, 'You'll be known by the
company
you keep.' That if those princes were out there eating goat with Osama
bin
Laden, then maybe they were there for nefarious reasons. But
nonetheless, they
would have been the price of battle."
And that doesn't bother him? "Not a lick," says Scheuer.
"My understanding is you had a reputation within the CIA as being
fairly
obsessive about this subject," says Kroft. "I dislike obsessive," says
Scheuer. "I
think hard-headed about it."
Whatever you call it, in 1999, three years after he started the bin
Laden
unit, Scheuer's candor got him into trouble with his supervisors at the
CIA. What
were the circumstances under which he left the bin Laden unit?
"I think I became too insistent that we were not pursuing this target
with
enough vigor and with enough risk-taking - - an unwillingness to take
risks,"
says Scheuer. "I got relieved of the position I was in. I had a lovely
sojourn
in the library and then had other sojourns since."
His exile ended shortly after the attacks of Sept. 11, when he was
brought
back to the bin Laden unit as a special adviser. But by then,
everything had
changed.
His nemesis had gone underground, and the United States was on its way
to
invading Afghanistan and Iraq - creating, Scheuer says, the perception
in the
minds of 1.3 billion Muslims that America had gone to war against
Islam.
"The war in Iraq - if Osama was a Christian - it's the Christmas
present he
never would have expected," says Scheuer.
Right or wrong, he says Muslims are beginning to view the United States
as a
colonial power with Israel as its surrogate, and with a military
presence in
three of the holiest places in Islam: the Arabian peninsula, Iraq, and
Jerusalem. And he says it is time to review and debate American policy
in the region,
even our relationship with Israel.
"No one wants to abandon the Israelis. But I think the perception is,
and I
think it's probably an accurate perception, that the tail is leading
the dog -
that we are giving the Israelis carte blanche ability to exercise
whatever
they want to do in their area," says Scheuer. "And if that's what the
American
people want, then that's what the policy should be, of course. But the
idea that
anything in the United States is too sensitive to discuss or too
dangerous to
discuss is really, I think, absurd."
Is he talking about appeasement?
"I'm not talking about appeasement. There's no way out of this war at
the
moment," says Scheuer. "It's not a choice between war and peace. It's a
choice
between war and endless war. It's not appeasement. I think it's better
even to
call it American self-interest."
Scheuer believes that al Qaeda is no longer just a terrorist
organization
that can be defeated by killing or capturing its leaders. Now, he says
it's a
global insurgency that's spreading revolutionary fervor throughout the
Muslim
world.
"Bin Laden's still at large. His most recent speech, I think,
demonstrates
that he's not running rock to rock, cave to cave. We are tangled in a
very
significant Islamic insurgency in Iraq," says Scheuer.
"Most dramatically, and perhaps least noticed, is the violence inside
Saudi
Arabia itself. Saudi Arabia was, until just a few years ago, probably
one of
the most safe countries on earth. And now the paper is daily full of
activities
and shootouts between Islamists who supported Osama bin Laden and the
government there."
But if bin Laden is much stronger than he was, why haven't there been
more
attacks on the United States?
"One of the great intellectual failures of the American intelligence
community, and especially the counterterrorism community, is to assume
if someone
hasn't attacked us, it's because he can't or because we've defeated
him," says
Scheuer. "Bin Laden has consistently shown himself to be immune to
outside
pressure. When he wants to do something, he does it on his own
schedule."
"You've written no one should be surprised when Osama bin Laden and al
Qaeda
detonate a weapon of mass destruction in the United States," says
Kroft. "You
believe that's going to happen?"
"I don't believe in inevitability. But I think it's pretty close to
being
inevitable," says Scheuer.
A nuclear weapon? "A nuclear weapon of some dimension, whether it's
actually
a nuclear weapon, or a dirty bomb, or some kind of radiological
device," says
Scheuer. "Yes, I think it's probably a near thing."
What evidence is there that bin Laden's actually working to do this?
"He's
told us it. Bin Laden is remarkably eager for Americans to know why he
doesn't
like us, what he intends to do about it and then following up and doing
something about it in terms of military actions," says Scheuer. "He's
told us that,
'We are going to acquire a weapon of mass destruction, and if we
acquire it, we
will use it.'"
After Sept. 11, Scheuer says bin Laden was criticized by Muslim clerics
for
launching such a serious attack without sufficient warning. That has
now been
given. And he says bin Laden has even obtained a fatwa, or Islamic
decree,
justifying a nuclear attack against the United States on religious
grounds.
"He secured from a Saudi sheik named Hamid bin Fahd a rather long
treatise on
the possibility of using nuclear weapons against the Americans.
Specifically,
nuclear weapons," says Scheuer. "And the treatise found that he was
perfectly
within his rights to use them. Muslims argue that the United States is
responsible for millions of dead Muslims around the world, so
reciprocity would mean
you could kill millions of Americans."
Scheuer says the fatwa was issued in May 2003, "and that's another
thing that
doesn't come to the attention of the American people."
Despite this threat, Scheuer insists the CIA doesn't have nearly enough
trained analysts working on the Osama bin Laden unit today. At a time
when Congress
is considering revolutionary changes in the way the intelligence
community is
organized, Scheuer sees no major problems with the CIA or the product
it
produces.
He blames Sept. 11 on poor leadership from people like former CIA
Director
George Tenet, his chief deputy, Jim Pavitt, and former White House
counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke, who were invited, but declined,
to appear on Sunday's
60 Minutes.
"Richard Clarke has said that you're really sort of a hothead, a middle
manager who really didn't go to any of the cabinet meetings in which
important
things were discussed, and that basically you were just uninformed,"
says Kroft.
"I certainly agree with the fact that I didn't go to the cabinet
meetings.
But I'm certainly also aware that I'm much better informed than Mr.
Clarke ever
was about the nature of the intelligence that was available again Osama
bin
Laden and which was consistently denigrated by himself and Mr. Tenet,"
says
Scheuer.
"I think Mr. Clarke had a tendency to interfere too much with the
activities
of the CIA, and our leadership at the senior level let him interfere
too
much," says Scheuer. "So criticism from him I kind of wear as a badge
of honor."
Is there anything about bin Laden that Americans don't know, but
should?
"Yeah, I think there is. I think our leaders over the last decade have
done the
American people a disservice in continuing to characterize Osama bin
Laden as a
thug, as a gangster, as a degenerate personality, as some kind of
abhorrent
individual," says Scheuer.
"He surely does reprehensible activities, and we should surely take
care of
that by killing him as soon as we can. But he's not an irrational man.
He's a
very worthy enemy. He's an enemy to worry about."
"You wrote in your book that he's a great man," says Kroft.
"Yes, certainly a man, without the connotation good or bad, he's a
great man
in the sense that he's influenced the course of history," says Scheuer.
Does he respect bin Laden? "Until we respect him, we are going to die
in
numbers that are probably unnecessary," says Scheuer.
-----------------------------------------------------------
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Editorial Director
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CIA Rebellion
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2004/11/15/us-committing-war-crimes-in-falluja-cia-rebellion.php | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Sat Nov 20, 2004 4:50 pm Post subject: Violence Breaks Out All Over Baghdad |
| Remember the Jewish US Marine head (Sattler) of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force out of San Diego (Camp Pendleton is in Oceanside which is just above San Diego) saying yesterday that the attack on Falluja had 'broken' the back of the Iraqi resistance.. Looks like that brutal attack on Falluja (using Israeli tactics of blasting away Arabs like the rogue state does to the Palestinians in occupied Palestine) has greatly fueled the resistance according to the article included below.. Have you noticed how the Zionist neocons at the Pentagon (most of whom are racist Zionist Jews who have no problem with murdering Arabs) are apparently putting Jewish heads of the US military into place (for loyalty for the 'war for Israel' agenda perhaps) to include field commanders in Iraq like that Sattler and others:
http://www.nowarforisrael.com
http://www.nogw.com/warforisrael.html
Violence Breaks Out All Over Baghdad
2 hours, 12 minutes ago
By KATARINA KRATOVAC, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Baghdad exploded in violence Saturday, as insurgents attacked a U.S. patrol and a police station, assassinated four government employees and detonated several bombs. One American soldier was killed and nine were wounded during clashes that also left three Iraqi troops and a police officer dead.
Some of the heaviest violence came in Azamiyah, a largely Sunni Arab district of Baghdad where a day earlier U.S. troops raided the capital's main Sunni mosque. Shops were in flames, and a U.S. Humvee burned, with the body of what appeared to be its driver inside.
U.S. forces and insurgents also battled in the Sunni Triangle city of Ramadi, where clashes have been seen almost daily. Nine Iraqis were killed and five wounded in Saturday's fighting, hospital officials said.
In northern Iraq (news - web sites), U.S. and Iraqi forces uncovered four decapitated bodies as they continued a campaign to crush militants who rose up last week. American and Iraqi forces detained 30 suspected guerrillas overnight in Mosul, the U.S. military said Saturday.
Meanwhile, Germany and the United States reached a deal for forgiving 80 percent of Iraq's foreign debt, capping a months-long U.S. push to lift the country's debt burden as a boost to its economy as it seeks to rebuild and establish a democractic government.
The deal will be discussed by the Paris Club of creditor nations, which is owed about $42 billion by Iraq. "Our expectation is that it will be accepted," said Joerg Mueller, a spokesman for the German finance minister.
The United States has been pushing for a generous write-off, as much as 95 percent of Iraq's debt. However, other governments, including Germany, have questioned whether a country rich in oil should benefit from huge debt reduction.
The U.S. soldier was killed when his patrol was ambushed in Baghdad early Saturday, coming under a barrage of small arms fire, rocket-propelled grenades and roadside bombs, the military said. The statement did not say where the attack occurred, but it came amid clashes in a string of Baghdad neighborhoods.
Insurgents using rocket-propelled grenades and small arms attacked a police station early Saturday in Azamiyah, in the northern part of the city, killing one policeman, according to police officials.
Clashes spread in Azamiyah before dawn, with a number of U.S. armored vehicles seen in flames. Footage by Associated Press Television News showed a smashed and burning U.S. Humvee, with what appeared to be the remains of a body in the driver's seat.
Smoke rose from burning shops along a commercial street. U.S. helicopters circled overhead and ambulances were driving to the scene of the clashes.
In western Baghdad, heavy fighting broke out Saturday between gunmen and Iraqi National Guards and American troops in the Amiriyah neighborhood, where three National Guardsmen were killed by roadside bombs, said policeman Akram al-Azzawi.
Nearby, a roadside bomb exploded as a U.S. patrol passed in the Khadra area, wounding two U.S. troops, according to policeman Ali Hussein of the Khadra police station. The U.S. military had no immediate confirmation.
In downtown Baghdad, a suicide bomber blew up his vehicle just after noon at an intersection on Saadoun Street, a bustling commercial street. One Iraqi civilian was killed and another wounded in the blast, which sent black smoke rising above the city center and set several cars ablaze.
And in the western part of the city, gunmen in a car chased down a vehicle carrying employees of the Ministry of Public Works on their way to work Saturday, opened fire and killed four of them, a ministry spokesman said. Amal Abdul-Hameed — an adviser to the ministry in charge of urban planning — and three employees from her office were killed, said spokesman Jassim Mohammed Salim.
The spasm of violence came a day after Iraqi forces backed by U.S. soldiers raided the Abu Hanifa mosque — one of the country's most important Sunni mosques — as worshippers were leaving after Friday prayers in the Azamiyah neighborhood.
The operation appeared to be part of a government crackdown on militant clerics opposed to the U.S.-led attack on Fallujah. Witnesses said at least three people were killed and 40 others arrested.
Congregants at the Abu Hanifa mosque said they heard explosions inside the building, apparently from stun grenades. Later, a reporter saw a computer and books, including a Quran, scattered on the floor of the imam's office near overturned furniture. U.S. soldiers were seen inside the mosque compound.
U.S. and Iraqi forces launched an offensive that they say has secured most of Fallujah, hoping to tame the insurgents' strongest bastion ahead of January elections. But many militants are believed to have fled the city to continue attacks elsewhere — and the operation risks alienating Iraq's Sunni Arab minority, whose participation in elections is seen as key to legitimacy.
Insurgents have carried out a wave of violence across Iraq coinciding with the Fallujah offensive. Mosul — Iraq's third-largest city with more than a million residents about 225 miles north of Baghdad — has been a center of violence.
Officials were trying to identify the four decapitated bodies found Thursday in the city, said Lt. Col. Paul Hastings, a spokesman for Task Force Olympia.
An extremist group, the Ansar al-Sunnah Army, said in Web statement Saturday that it kidnapped and killed two members of a Kurdish political group in Mosul. It posted a video showing two men being shot. The men wore robes with the initials of their group, the Kurdistan Democratic Party, on them. The claim's authenticity could not be verified.
On Friday, a statement posted on an Islamist Web site in the name of Jordanian terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's group said it had "slaughtered" two Iraqi National Guard officers "in the presence of a big crowd" in Mosul. The claim included no photos or video and could not be verified.
There was no way of knowing immediately whether the decapitated bodies were connected to either claim. | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Sat Dec 11, 2004 4:12 am Post subject: Officer Alleges CIA Retalliation |
| http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49647-2004Dec8.html?sub=new
Officer Alleges CIA Retaliation
Lawsuit Says Agency Urged False Reporting on Iraqi Arms
By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 9, 2004; Page A02
A senior CIA operative who handled sensitive informants in Iraq asserts that CIA managers asked him to falsify his reporting on weapons of mass destruction and retaliated against him after he refused.
The operative, who remains under cover, asserts in a lawsuit made public yesterday that a co-worker warned him in 2001 "that CIA management planned to 'get him' for his role in reporting intelligence contrary to official CIA dogma."
"Our mission is to . . . report the facts," Anya Guilsher, a CIA spokeswoman, says of the agency.
The subject of that reporting has been blacked out by the CIA, and the word "Iraq" does not appear in the heavily redacted version of the legal complaint, but the remaining language and context make clear that the officer's work related to prewar intelligence on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction.
In the lawsuit, the officer asserts that CIA managers retaliated against him for refusing their demands by beginning a counterintelligence investigation of allegations that he had sex with a female asset and by initiating an inspector general's investigation into allegations that he stole money meant to be used to pay human assets.
Those investigations, the lawsuit asserts, were "initiated for the sole purpose of discrediting him and retaliating against him for questioning the integrity of the WMD reporting . . . and for refusing to falsify his intelligence reporting to support the politically mandated conclusion" of matters that are redacted in the lawsuit.
The lawsuit marks the first public instance in which a CIA employee has charged directly that agency officials pressured him to produce intelligence to support the administration's prewar position that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were a grave and gathering threat, and to suppress information that ran counter to that view.
"Their official dogma was contradicted by his reporting and they did not want to hear it," said Roy Krieger, the officer's attorney.
Anya Guilsher, a CIA spokeswoman, said the agency could not comment on the lawsuit but added, "The notion that CIA managers order officers to falsify reports is flat wrong. Our mission is to call it like we see it and report the facts."
Critics of the Iraq war have asserted the administration pressured analysts and operators to produce information that bolstered the administration's case for invading Iraq. Congressional investigations did not find evidence to support that charge, but found that the CIA did not have enough spies in Iraq and that the analysis of the highly circumstantial evidence was mischaracterized as firmer than it was.
No biological or chemical weapons have been found in Iraq. A subsequent CIA-led investigation found that Iraq was nowhere near producing a nuclear weapon, as the administration had asserted.
The unnamed operative is a 23-year officer of Middle Eastern descent who spent much of his career on secret and covert operations to collect intelligence on and interdict weapons of mass destruction, the lawsuit says.
In 2002, the lawsuit says, the CIA officer "attempted to report routine intelligence" from a human asset "but was thwarted by CIA superiors." It goes on to say that he was subsequently approached by a senior desk officer "who insisted that Plaintiff falsify his reporting," and that when he refused, the "management" of the CIA's Counterproliferation Division ordered that he "remove himself from any further 'handling' " of the unnamed asset, who is referred elsewhere in the document as "a highly respected human asset."
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington on Friday and placed in the public court docket yesterday after a judge said it could proceed using a pseudonym for the plaintiff, says his superiors falsely promised him that they would report his findings to President Bush and falsely claimed that they had disseminated some of his other reports through normal channels.
In 2003, the lawsuit says, the CIA officer learned of the counterintelligence investigation of allegations that he was having sex with a female asset. Five days later, it says, he was told that a promotion was being canceled "because of pressure from the DDO [Deputy Director of Operations] James Pavitt."
Pavitt declined to comment.
In September 2003, the CIA placed the officer on administrative leave without explanation, the lawsuit says. Eight months later, it says, the inspector general's office advised him that he was under investigation for "diverting to his own use monies provided him for payment to human assets." The document says the allegations were made by the same managers who had asked him to falsify reports.
In August 2004, he was terminated "for unspecified reasons," the lawsuit says. It requests that his employment, salary and promotions be restored and that the CIA pay compensatory damages and legal fees.
In a letter to CIA acting general counsel John Rizzo dated Dec. 6, Krieger requested a meeting between the officer and CIA Director Porter J. Goss because of "the serious nature of the allegations in this case, including deliberately misleading the President on intelligence concerning weapons of mass destruction."
The above is exactly what James Bamford conveys from even another CIA agent in his 'A Pretext for War' book:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2004/10/10/james-bamford-s-new-book-a-pretext-for-war-on-the-neocons.php | | | | Alpha | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
