“Dear Ma – Sorry the bank took our house because the Government exported all of our jobs overseas to bring about this engineered economic collapse and capitalizing on Wall Street’s fraudulent mortgage backed securities, needing our houses to balance their books, needing real assets, not fake paper money printed out of thin air. Those bankers needed that $144 billion christmas bonus last year for all the hard work they do.

Look on the bright side, though, the economic stimulus package has worked out well and brought good will to the Taliban here, promoting Afghan businesses. Don’t worry though, I’ll be bringing back a lot of black tar heroin that I’ve been guarding for the CIA, the main reason we’re here. That was the one thing Jane’s Defense didn’t mention when they reported on our looming attack on Afghanistan in February, 2001, as the U.S. Government was alerting most nations around the world regarding the invasion for Halliburton, Enron and Unocal. That’s why I deployed just outside the border of Afghanistan almost a year early in 2000, well before Bush signed the order to invade September 9, 2001.

Anyway, I’ll be taking that job with Blackwater, er, I mean Xe soon. Can’t wait.

- Love Timmy

Ps. I‘ll be shipping back the heroin in the body bags of dead soldiers and friends the same way it was done during Vietnam. I’ll get you a new robo-signed mortgage backed house soon! Hope they still send you you’re Social Security. They say they’re broke, but the Government spends tons of money over here.

---

By Karen DeYoung, Sunday, July 24, 9:38 PM | Washed-up Post

A year-long military-led investigation has concluded that U.S. taxpayer money has been indirectly funneled to the Taliban under a $2.16 billion transportation contract that the United States has funded in part to promote Afghan businesses.

The unreleased investigation provides seemingly definitive evidence that corruption puts U.S. transportation money into enemy hands, a finding consistent with previous inquiries carried out by Congress, other federal agencies and the military. Yet U.S. and Afghan efforts to address the problem have been slow and ineffective, and all eight of the trucking firms involved in the work remain on U.S. payroll. In March, the Pentagon extended the contract for six months.

According to a summary of the investigation results, compiled in May and reviewed by The Washington Post, the military found “documented, credible evidence . . . of involvement in a criminal enterprise or support for the enemy” by four of the eight prime contractors. Investigators also cited cases of profiteering, money laundering and kickbacks to Afghan power brokers, government officials and police officers. Six of the companies were found to have been associated with “fraudulent paperwork and behavior.”

“This goes beyond our comprehension,” said Rep. John F. Tierney (D-Mass.), who last summer was chairman of a House oversight subcommittee that charged that the military was, in effect, supporting a vast protection racket that paid insurgents and corrupt middlemen to ensure safe passage of the truck convoys that move U.S. military supplies across Afghanistan.

The military summary included several case studies in which money was traced from the U.S. Treasury through a labyrinth of subcontractors and power brokers. In one, investigators followed a $7.4 million payment to one of the eight companies, which in turn paid a subcontractor, who hired other subcontractors to supply trucks.

The trucking subcontractors then made deposits into an Afghan National Police commander’s account, already swollen with payments from other subcontractors, in exchange for guarantees of safe passage for the convoys. Intelligence officials traced $3.3 million, withdrawn in 27 transactions from the commander’s account, that was transferred to insurgents in the form of weapons, explosives and cash.

A senior U.S. defense official said that a radically revised transport system, replacing the Host Nation Trucking contract when it expires in September, will be announced in a few weeks. Based on the findings of the investigation, the new contract will expand the number of companies from eight to at least 30 and change the security system for the truck convoys. It will require detailed information on all subcontractors and supervision by military units in the field rather than headquarters-based contracting officers.

In the meantime, interim steps have been taken to improve oversight and accountability within the murky web of companies and individuals involved in the shipment of more than 70 percent of all U.S. military food, fuel, weapons and construction material within Afghanistan, said the official, who was authorized to discuss the issue only on the condition of anonymity.

“It’s still ugly,” the official said. “But it’s getting better.”

Problems with local vendors

Unlike in Iraq, where the U.S. military favored using American contractors who made millions providing security, reconstruction and training, local hires have performed the bulk of those tasks in Afghanistan. During the first quarter of this fiscal year, the U.S. military’s Central Command reported that 53 percent of more than 87,000 contract personnel it employed in Afghanistan were locals.

The U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department together signed nearly 1,000 contracts with non-U.S. vendors in Afghanistan last year.

The employment, under a government-wide policy called Afghan First, is an integral part of the Obama administration’s counterinsurgency strategy and calls for promoting Afghan capabilities, businesses and infrastructure.

The extensive military use of contractors for tasks such as transport, security and construction is also designed to free U.S. troops for warfighting and, in most cases, is deemed far less expensive than using American resources.

But “awards to local vendors in Afghanistan pose particular challenges,” according to a General Accountability Office report issued last month, because of the large size of the U.S. effort, the great distances that must be traveled on often-dangerous roads and “the potential for fraud, corruption, or the siphoning of funds to organizations hostile to U.S. forces.”

The GAO report concluded that the number of contracts was so huge that it was impossible to vet them all, and it recommended assessing only the most risky. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the State Department, the GAO said, have no vetting system in Afghanistan, and the Defense Department’s practice is to vet contractors only after contracts have been issued.

The GAO noted that one Defense Department vetting system averages 15 vendors per week and would take until March 2012 to vet the 1,042 Afghan vendors awarded new military contracts in fiscal 2010. The estimate did not include a backlog of contracts from previous years or any contract valued at less than $100,000.

Weak contractor oversight

Massive amounts of food, fuel and warfighting material are needed to support U.S. troops in Afghanistan; their number has more than tripled to about 100,000 since President Obama took office. Most supplies are brought by ship to neighboring Pakistan and transported by truck to central military depots in Afghanistan.

From there, the goods are trucked to hundreds of military installations across the country, usually along desolate stretches of road controlled by or vulnerable to attack from warlord militias and Taliban insurgents. Moving the supplies requires 3,000 to 4,000 trucks per week.

Six of the eight companies chosen as prime contractors under the Host Nation Trucking contract are owned by Afghans or are joint Afghan-international ventures. Two are considered U.S.-owned, including the Washington-based Sandi Group and NCL Holdings, whose founder and president, Hamed Wardak, is the son of Afghanistan’s defense minister. The new investigation, conducted by a military-led task force that included officials from the FBI, Treasury and U.S. intelligence, did not identify which of the companies are implicated in payments to insurgents, nor does it quantify how much money has been misspent or transferred to insurgents.

Wardak, in an interview last year, denied that his company was involved in any kickbacks or indirect payments to insurgents. The Sandi Group did not respond to requests last week for comment.

For the life of the contract — one year, with options for a second year and the recently exercised six-month extension — each company was guaranteed a minimum of $250,000 and a maximum of $360 million. U.S. expenditure was capped at $2.16 billion, although less than $600 million had been paid out through March.

rime contractors were responsible for furnishing up to 600 trucks and protecting them. But five of the eight prime contractors had no trucks of their own, two had fewer than 200, and all hired subcontractors to provide security, according to the investigation. From the start, the companies have served largely as brokers atop scores of subcontractors.

As early as the summer of 2009, amid frequent reports that subcontractors and middlemen were paying contract money to warlords and the Taliban to guarantee safe passage for the convoys, U.S. Army investigators prepared a briefing for senior commanders that bore the blunt title “Host Nation Trucking Payments to Insurgents.” Investigators estimated that the going rate for protection was $1,500 to $2,500 per truck, paid by contractors and their subs to private Afghan security companies allied with warlords or insurgents — or, in some cases, directly to militias or Taliban commanders.

The military maintained that federal contracting rules did not require, and by some interpretations prohibited, a close look below the level of prime contractors. Investigating the relationships behind the kickbacks and protection rackets would have been expensive, time-consuming and difficult. Many military officials in charge of overseeing the contracts were reluctant to disturb the status quo, believing it was far more important that food, fuel and bullets for U.S. forces were delivered intact and on time.

“These people should be fired and sent home,” the senior defense official said of the military overseers. “The attitude is crazy — it’s okay to pay the enemy because then we have better snacks” if the convoys travel unimpeded. “I think everybody gets that now.”

Concern in Washington

In the fall of 2009, problems with the trucking contract were discussed during a closed-door review by the administration of its war strategy. That December, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and then-Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates voiced public concern that the United States was funding the very people it was fighting against in Afghanistan.

Since then, Afghan and U.S. officials have made changes on the margins as they tried to unravel the complicated web of actors and track the money. In Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai pledged to disband all private security contractors and form a new government security force to guard supply convoys, but implementation has been slow.

Search Amazon.com for iran contra

In Washington, impatient lawmakers began their own investigations. In early 2010, Tierney charged the military with foot-dragging in its response to the subcommittee’s request for “all documents related to HNT security.” In May, after the military refused to turn over the 2009 briefing prepared by Army investigators, Tierney wrote a letter of complaint to Gates.

The document was supplied in June, along with a redacted copy, in which most or all of every page was blacked out, that the Defense Department deemed suitable for public disclosure. A department lawyer wrote Tierney to warn of “serious consequences” for what were still “open criminal investigations” and “for our relationship with the government and people of Afghanistan” if the unredacted document was publicly revealed.

Last summer, after the release of the House subcommittee report, the then-U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David H. Petraeus, appointed task forces to investigate contracting and corruption, including Task Force 2010, which carried out the investigation of the trucking contract. In September, he released new guidelines making commanders accountable for monitoring contracts within their areas of responsibility.

The next month, a separate Senate Armed Services Committee investigation into contracting confirmed the House report, concluding that the military had only minimal knowledge of — and exercised virtually no control over — the thousands of Afghans contracted to guard its installations and supply convoys.

Both reports identified the security wing of the Watan group, a business conglomerate run by relatives of Karzai, as involved in bribing officials for control over convoy routes and making payments to Taliban commanders. In the most substantive action by the military, Watan was barred in December from receiving new U.S. contracts. But it has contested the action in court, denying the allegations, and has been allowed to continue its security work so the company could “fully exercise due process,” the senior defense official said.

The House and Senate have adopted measures this year, attached to fiscal 2012 defense spending legislation, giving military commanders additional powers to investigate and cancel contracts in which insurgent ties have been found.

Tierney, now the top minority member of the national security subcommittee of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, voiced sharp criticism of the length of time it took the military-led task force to reach the same conclusions that lawmakers made public a year ago.

“I would hate like hell to think my kid was over there” and the Taliban was “coming after them with something bought with our taxpayers’ money,” Tierney said.

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-trucking-funds-reach-taliban-military-led-investigation-concludes/2011/07/22/gIQAmMDUXI_story.html?wpisrc=al_national

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Nearly 500 Taliban Break Out of Prison

April 25th, 2011

Via: AFP:

Almost 500 Taliban fighters and commanders tunnelled out of a prison in an audacious jailbreak in southern Afghanistan which the government admitted on Monday was a security “disaster”.

The Taliban said it was behind the operation to free the inmates through a 360-metre tunnel into Kandahar prison which it been digging for five months. It claimed all those who escaped were Taliban, including over 100 commanders.

The daring breakout in the Taliban’s heartland, the prison’s second in three years, threatens to undermine recent gains claimed by NATO forces in the area after a US-led troop surge, just as the annual fighting season begins.

It is also a major embarrassment for Afghan forces who are due to take on greater responsibility for security in their country ahead of the planned withdrawal of foreign combat troops in 2014.

“A tunnel hundreds of metres long was dug from the south of the prison into the prison, and 476 political prisoners escaped last night,” prison director General Ghulam Dastageer Mayar said.

The escapees, who represent over a third of the prison’s total population, came from its political section, he added.

Kandahar prison is the largest in southern Afghanistan and holds Taliban captured on nearby battlefields, which are among the country’s bloodiest.

Confirming the breakout, President Hamid Karzai’s spokesman Waheed Omer said he believed only 13 of the escapees had been recaptured so far.

“This is a blow, it’s something that should not have happened,” he said.

“We’re looking into finding out what exactly happened and what’s being done to compensate for the disaster that happened in Kandahar.”

Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi said the Islamist militants were responsible for the mass breakout, which took place over several hours.

A separate Taliban statement said they had started digging the tunnel from a nearby safe house five months ago and that it passed under several government checkpoints and a major highway.

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Sometimes it takes me awhile to catch up on the news. Yesterday I finally read an article from the September 2010 issue of Service Contractor magazine that I’d been carrying for awhile in my Land’s End canvas attaché bag.

The news: It concludes that more than 2,000 contractors have died in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. “Contractor deaths now represent over 25 percent of all U.S. fatalities” in those conflicts, write Steven Schooner and Collin Swan of the George Washington University Law School. (I would bet that contractor KIAs are far higher, since there is no indication that non-U.S. deaths have been tracked with any fidelity.)

In Iraq in both 2009 and 2010, and in Afghanistan in 2010, contractors were running ahead of the U.S. military in losses, the article indicates.

Speaking of Iraq: Can you imagine the family conversations amongst Iraqis fleeing homeward from Cairo? “Let’s go to Beirut, you said, it’s nice. And then it wasn’t so we moved to Egypt — you said, it’s stable, the same old guy has been in charge for 30 years. Where next, Mr. Smart Guy, Libya?!”

And speaking even more of Iraq, here, courtesy of Joel Wing and Best Defense commenter Stephen Donnelly, is everything you ever wanted to know about the map of Iraq, and more. The thing to remember is that, contrary to widespread belief, Iraq is not an invented country:

This myth, with accompanying imagery of British adviser Gertrude Bell and Winston Churchill dividing up the Middle East during an English Garden party (before jumping down Alice’s rabbit hole for further entertainment), is incorrect and misleading.

The general political and administrative boundaries of modern Iraq conform with well-understood historical and physical boundaries with three exceptions: Kuwait, the waterways south of Basra, and the undefined desert regions: Kuwait, once part of the Ottoman Basra province, emerged as a separate “nation” under British tutelage; the desert boundaries, with few permanent inhabitants, remains a somewhat ill-defined place (despite paper demarcations); and, the waterways were further defined by much later treaties between adjacent Iran, but the “Thalweg,” the center line of the waterways, continues to naturally shift against Iraq’s interests.

With few exceptions (Kuwait and minor Iraq/Iran border areas), the settled Iraqi population has known where Iraq was, including Kurds (who were very aware of which part was Iraqi, Iranian and Turkish Kurdistan), on a generational basis, and those boundaries remain unchanged.

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US Has Now Occupied Afghanistan For Just as Long as Soviets

Julianne Escobedo Shepherd

:: Article nr. 72234 sent on 27-nov-2010 04:31 ECT
www.uruknet.info?p=72234

Link: www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/358533/us_has_now_occupied_afghanistan_for
_just_as_long_as_soviets/

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Fewer than one in 10 Afghans are aware of the 9/11 attacks and their precipitation of the war in Afghanistan, says a study from an international think tank.

A report (PDF) from the International Council on Security and Development (ICOS) shows that 92 percent of those surveyed had never heard of the coordinated multiple attacks on US soil on September 11, 2001. It also shows that four in 10 Afghans believe the US is on their soil in order to “destroy Islam or occupy Afghanistan.”

To be sure, the survey can’t claim to be definitive: It only canvassed men, and relied primarily on respondents from Helmand and Kandahar, the two most war-torn provinces in the country. But the results nonetheless show that Western forces fighting insurgents in Afghanistan have largely failed to connect with the local population.

“We need to explain to the Afghan people why we are here, and both show and convince them that their future is better with us than with the Taliban,” ICOS lead field researcher Norine MacDonald said in a statement.

The survey also suggests that Afghans are skeptical of their own government’s ability to protect them, and have little regard for the fledgling democratic institutions the country is building. Fully 43 percent could not name one positive aspect of democracy, and nearly two-thirds — 61 percent — said they didn’t think Afghan forces would be able to keep up the fight against the Taliban if and when Western forces withdrew.

Full article here

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November 21, 2010 – In an incredible twist of events that would qualify as a script for a spy thriller, the Americans are publicly claiming credit for “succeeding” in convincing the Taliban, especially some members of the Quetta Shura, to negotiate a peaceful end to the war in Afghanistan. Incredible because had the US wanted, this deal was on the table as far back as September/October 2001 before a single shot was fired or a single person killed in Afghanistan. Taliban leader Mulla Muhammad Omar had offered to hand over Osama bin Laden to the US if Washington provided proof of his involvement in the 9/11 attacks. He also offered to meet American officials to discuss the issue. In his customary arrogance, then US President George Bush had declared: “We will see you in Kabul.” A few weeks later the bombing started. Just before the US attack, a Western reporter had asked Mulla Omar about his fate. “Afghanistan is a vast country,” he replied. “We will fight them in the mountains, the valleys and villages until we have driven them out of Afghanistan like all previous invaders.” At the time, Mulla Omar’s statement was greeted with great derision. Nine years and tens of thousands of deaths later, it is the Americans that are begging the Taliban for talks… continua / continued [72062] [ 21-nov-2010 23:54 ECT ]

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AFP

:: Article nr. 71188 sent on 27-oct-2010 01:09 ECT
www.uruknet.info?p=71188

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Source: Washington Post

Ahmed Wali Karzai, the half-brother of Afghanistan’s president and boss of the strategically important Kandahar province, has been on the CIA payroll for over a decade, Bob Woodward writes in his new book, “Obama’s Wars.”

By the fall of 2008, Woodward says, “Ahmed Wali Karzai had been on the CIA payroll for years, beginning before 9/11. He had belonged to the CIA’s small network of paid agents and informants inside Afghanistan. In addition, the CIA paid him money through his half-brother, the president.”

Hamid Karzai was plucked from obscurity and installed as president after U.S.-backed Afghan forces chased the Taliban from power following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

There have been many accounts of his brother’s relationship with the CIA over the years, leaving the impression that he is a CIA “agent,” i.e., a controlled asset of the spy agency.

Read Full Article

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September 25, 2010 – Afghanistan might be characterized as having a paucity of toilets and an excess of corruption. These two aspects capture the post-Taliban essence of the country. The “achievements” of Hamid Karzai the de facto mayor of Kabul, the United States and NATO in Afghanistan after more than eight years of U.S. occupation and approximately $25 billion in disbursed (2001-9) non-military aid,[4] include Afghanistan being ranked as the worst place in the world for sanitation (per UNICEF data) and in 2009 posting 179th (out of 180 countries) in Transparency International’s corruption-perceptions index. The latter figure for 2005 showed Afghanistan ranking 117th out of 159 countries… continua / continued

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In September 2006, the world experienced a paradigm shift when a strong lobbying effort by grassroots organizations effectively derailed an initiative: A move that was tantamount to a declaration of war on Iran.

U.S.: Iran Resolution Shelved in Rare Defeat for Israel Lobby

In a significant and highly unusual defeat for the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) the Democratic leadership of the House of Representatives has decided to shelve a long-pending, albeit non-binding, resolution that called for President George W. Bush to launch what critics called a blockade against Iran.

But an unexpectedly strong lobbying effort by a number of grassroots Iranian-American, Jewish-American, peace, and church groups effectively derailed the initiative.

The decision by the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Howard Berman, to shelve HR 362 marked an unusual defeat for AIPAC, according to its critics who charged that the resolution was designed to lay the groundwork for the Bush administration or any successor administration to take military action against Iran.

A nuclear confrontation with Iran was avoided in 2006 because a small number of people with the power of community were enough to convince our Government not to take the world to the point of no return.

Our un-elected officials got the message, that the perils of a nuclear confrontation with Iran could mean the end of life for everyone here on earth. Congress refused to go along with the Bush Administration’s plans for military action against Iran.

Just two years later, the power of community stopped congress from attacking Iran.

Iran 2010

If you aren’t up to speed about the most dangerous move towards nuclear war the world has seen since the 1962 Cuba Missile Crisis, visit the critically acclaimed Global Research website founded by Michel Chossudovsky, Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

Chossudovsky writes:

The US and its allies are preparing to launch a nuclear war directed against Iran with devastating consequences and this military adventure in the real sense of the word threatens the future of humanity.

The international community has endorsed nuclear war in the name of World Peace. “Making the World safer” is the justification for launching a military operation which could potentially result in a nuclear holocaust.

Iran, a country with a non-existent nuclear weapons capability and an air force that belongs in a museum, is not a threat to either nuclear power with a presence in the Middle East, the United States or Israel. [1]

The community of grassroots Iranian-American, Jewish-American, peace, and church groups have proven over and over, when we cooperate with each other we can make a difference.

The Powers That Be (TPTB) knew the day would come when the people would realize the power they have when they work together for their own survival.

Be it growing our own food in cooperation with our neighbors or lobbying the U.S. government with the truth about Iran, it only takes a small number of us to make a difference. [2]

Normally I don’t recommend those “take action” campaigns, the ones that tell us, “it’s not too late, click-here to importune our “elected” representatives with emails and faxes.” But in this case our emails and faxes attest to our power…of community. [3]

Start by contacting the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton and demand she honor the commitment made by President Obama during the 2007 Democratic debate when he said that he would, “As president, be willing to meet without preconditions with Iran’s leaders, and that the notion of not talking to one’s foes was ridiculous.” [4]

E-mail President of the United States, (202) 456-1414 Phone, (202) 456-2461 Fax
E-mail The Secretary of State, (202) 647-6575 press 1 to leave a comment

“In nuclear war all men are cremated equal” Dexter Gordon

We can do this, we did it in 2006, 2008 and we can do it in 2010.

Katherine Smith, PhD mandrell2010@gmail.com

Footnotes:
[1] Israel has enough plutonium to make up to 200 nuclear weapons. Who’s Telling the Truth About Iran’s Nuclear Program? by Muhammad Sahimi

[2] [Excerpt From Grandmother Scores Huge Victory over Monsanto]

And the question that scares Monsanto to death:

Why don’t I and all of my neighbors just grow our own food…on one square foot of land?

The conversation at Starbucks is no longer about which stocks or houses are going up (or down) but which vegetables sprout the fastest and how many crops can one get in before winter. Now when someone mentions planting a bush permanently they are not talking about how to bury our last president but the best way to plant super bush beans in the spring.

Quit worrying about HR 875, going to jail or getting fined $1 million for growing your own food; that has to be disinformation.

Even if there were enough food police there aren’t enough judges and prosecutors to enforce such a ridiculous law.

What the Monsanto lobby is really afraid of is that one day we will wake up and realize if we work together as a community and cooperate with each other then they will have no power over us.

[3] Those “take action”- campaigns that appeal to our selfish and divisive nature don’t work. These are going around the internet:

Subject: Sign the letter to Google. Tell them to stop being evil and protect the free and open Internet.

Subject: Hi — this is Jason Rosenbaum, a new campaigner at the PCCC. I’ve got some urgent news. Can you sign our promise to oppose cuts in Social Security and then ask your representatives to sign on as well?

All they accomplish is to reinforce our feelings of helpless and isolation. They create negative energy, consider a typical rant:

“These people have been robbing us for years. I don’t for the life of me know why we keep sending the same people that keep doing the same things over and over again. We need to empty Washington! Send them home in wholesale fashion. Take the profit out, of public service and put the public service, back in!”

[4] Mr. Obama first made waves with his views on Iran policy in 2007, when he said during a Democratic debate that he would, as president, be willing to meet without preconditions with Iran’s leaders, and that the notion of not talking to one’s foes was “ridiculous.”

Since becoming president, Mr. Obama has pursued diplomacy, but his stance has become steadily more confrontational. Iran’s Nuclear Program, The New York Times

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The timing of an investigation by the House Ethics Committee, which on August 2, 2010 formally brought a case against Congresswoman Maxine Waters, one of America’s most enduring liberal and fierce Anti War politicians, and the WikiLeaks of tens of thousands of Army documents related to the war in Afghanistan may be connected.

Speculation by bloggers, including John Young of Cryptome.com, and an expose at The Intel Hub that the WikiLeaks is part of a disinformation operation, and that the documents themselves could even be fake, should put every left leaning American on Yellow alert.

Fox News wasted no time exploiting the WikiLeaks documents to further vilify Iran, pointing out that the documents indicate the U.S. belief that Iran is arming the Taliban insurgency. This adds another layer to Fox’s steady stream of propaganda that has flowed over the years advocating for an attack on the country, and stands as a reason why some believe the leak was staged. WikiLeaks documents– disinformation or not– are being used for anti-Iran propaganda, OpEdNews

Google trends confirm the news coverage has shifted from the BP Gulf Oil Spill to a debate over the non-Arab sovereign country of Iran. [1]

An investigation marginalizing the most virulent anti war democrat in congress at a time when the U.S. is openly considering a raid on Iranian’s (non-existent) nuclear weapons program, could be the most dangerous move towards nuclear war the world has seen since the 1962 Cuba Missile crisis.

Congresswoman Waters responded immediately to the baseless charges, “The record will clearly show that in advocating on behalf of minority banks, neither my office nor I benefited in any way, engaged in improper action or influenced anyone.”

The committee, which apparently is dragging it’s feet on the investigation of the alleged impropriety that took place 18 months ago, recently announced it could not determine a date for the hearing.

August 4, 2010, Congresswoman Water’s office called on the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct to schedule an adjudicatory hearing and to release to the public all documents related to her.

“I feel strongly that further delay in the scheduling of the hearing violates the fundamental principles of due process, denies my constituents the opportunity to evaluate this case, and harms my ability to defend my integrity.

Therefore I am waiving my right to keep the Committee’s findings confidential so that the public to be fully informed about this matter and I am able to present my case, my constituents and all Americans will understand that I have not violated any House rules.”

The failure to release the allegations against Congresswoman Waters has resulted in a media circus of speculation based only on a report prepared by the controversial Office of Congressional Ethics.

You will recall Public opinion was deeply divided on Bush’s 1990 Gulf policy, and the decision to invade Iraq was made by the US Senate via a narrow five-vote margin.

An investigation of any kind (especially one that is over events that took place in 2008) of the most outspoken voice of reason in the U.S. House of Representatives on the issue of U.S. aggression in the Middle East should put all Americans on Red alert.

And if you want more proof of a concerted effort to paint Iran, a country with a non-existent nuclear weapons capability and an air force that belongs in museums read on. [2]

On August 3, 2010, the U.S. State Department rebuffed a call from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for direct talks with President Barack Obama. In the same week of the anniversary of the unnecessary bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Hillary Clinton proposes the ultimate hypocrisy by suggesting that Tehran pay more attention to the international concerns over its nuclear program. [3]

Just two days later, the U.S. State Department released their latest report on terrorism and claims that Iran remained the, “most active” state sponsor of terrorism, and its support for terrorist and militant groups throughout the Middle East and Central Asia had a “direct impact” on international efforts for peace and stability.

This report on terrorism should be questioned because in 2001 the senior director for Middle East affairs in the National Security Council is quoted as saying:

“The State Department and NSC officials met secretly with Iranian diplomats in October, 2001 to discuss “how to effectively unseat the Taliban and once the Taliban was gone, how to stand up an Afghan government.” [4]

Normally I don’t recommend those “take action”- campaigns: the ones that tell us, it’s not too late, click-here to importune our “elected”- representatives with emails and faxes.

However, a confrontation with Iran is different.

A World War III would be terminal, and therefore it is imperative we make our voices heard.

Contact Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton and demand she honor the commitment made by President Obama during the 2007 Democratic debate when he said that he would:

“As president, be willing to meet without preconditions with Iran’s leaders, and that the notion of not talking to one’s foes was ridiculous.” [5]

What’s worse than turmoil in the Middle East asked a blogger, “A radioactive turmoil in the Middle East.

E-mail President of the United States
Call President Obama (202) 456-1414
Fax the White House (202) 456-2461

E-mail The Secretary of State
Call Hillary Rodham Clinton (202) 647-6575 press 1 to leave a comment

Albert Einstein understood the perils of nuclear war and the extinction of life on earth, which has already started with the radioactive contamination resulting from depleted uranium. “ I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”

Katherine Smith, PhD mandrell2010@gmail.com

Footnotes:

[1] Recent developments have turned the Middle East into the center of international attention. Iran, as the Persian Gulf region’s only non-Arab nation, Israel, as the world’s sole Jewish state, and a host of fragile Arab countries, who are being immersed in the waves of the West’s economic turmoil, find their destiny intertwined, with each party trying to surmount the other. All this makes for an interesting, yet worrying, rivalry in the Middle East.

August 5, Google Alert – Nuclear
AP Exclusive: Iran defiant in nuclear documents
Nuclear powers remember Hiroshima, The Press Association
UK PM Makes Policy Slip, Says Iran Has Nuclear Weapon, Wall Street Journal
Senate Committee Delays Action on New START Treaty, Voice of America
Poll: Arab majority believes nuclear Iran helps Mideast, Jewish Telegraphic Agency

[2] Who’s Telling the Truth About Iran’s Nuclear Program? by Muhammad Sahimi
Since February 2003, Iran’s nuclear program has undergone what the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) itself admits to be the most intrusive inspection in its entire history. After thousands of hours of inspections by some of the most experienced IAEA experts, the Agency has verified time and again that (1) there is no evidence of a nuclear weapons program in Iran, and (2) all the declared nuclear materials have been accounted for; there has been no diversion of such materials to non-peaceful purposes. Iran has a clean bill of health, as far as its nuclear program is concerned.

July 7, 2008 04:24 AM H. Con. Res. 362 – through efforts, Iran seeks to establish regional hegemony, threatens longstanding friends of the United States in the Middle East, and endangers American national security interests.

Regional hegemony is not achieved with Iranian army that has been designed solely to defend Iran, and an air force that belongs in museums.

To summarize: it is clear that practically every paragraph in the Senate and House Resolutions have factual errors, lies, exaggerations, and half-truths. Iran can be criticized on many grounds, particularly in the area of respect for human rights. But, Iran is not a threat to the United States or to Israel. It is not anywhere close to having the capability for manufacturing nuclear weapons, even if it wanted to.

Therefore, the American public must recognize these Resolutions for what they really are: War Resolutions proposed and pushed by neoconservatives in both the Democrat and Republican parties, various pro-Israel lobbies, and their allies.

It is crucial that the American public act now, today, by calling their congressional representatives before these “declarations of war” against Iran are passed. If we do launch an unprovoked attack on Iran the results will most probably be horrific to all sides, if not to the entire world.

[3] U.S. dismisses Ahmadinejad’s call for direct talks with Obama

[4] President Ahmadinejad of Iran has denied the charges that his government supports Taliban insurgents.

Prior to Ahmadinejad’s coming to power, while the U.S. planned the invasion of Afghanistan, Iran helped organize the Northern Alliance against the Taliban. Though the U.S. has downplayed Iran’s role in the early days of the war, U.S.soldiers and officials have conceded that Iranian forces were present with the Afghan rebels in 2001. In his 2006 article, “How Neocons Sabotaged Iran’s Help on al-Qaeda” author Gareth Porter wrote:

“After the Sept. 11 attacks, U.S. officials responsible for preparing for war in Afghanistan needed Iran’s help to unseat the Taliban and establish a stable government in Kabul. Iran had organized resistance by the Northern Alliance and had provided arms and funding at a time when the United States had been unwilling to do so.”

The article quotes Flynt Leverett– senior director for Middle East affairs in the National Security Council at the time– who said that State Department and NSC officials met secretly with Iranian diplomats in October, 2001 to discuss “how to effectively unseat the Taliban and once the Taliban was gone, how to stand up an Afghan government.”

The State Department’s policy planning staff wrote a paper in November 2001 recommending that the U.S. pursue more formal cooperation with Iran in fighting al-Qaeda. Yet collaboration with Iran in Afghanistan would have involved equal sharing of information about al-Qaeda between the two countries, and since the Bush administration had already decided to include Iran on its “axis of evil” hit-list by then, the U.S. turned its back on the idea.

As Neocons use the WikiLeaks story of Iranian efforts to hamper the U.S. occupation of its neighbor in order to push their agenda, no doubt they will overlook the fact that in 2007 the CIA received presidential approval to mount a covert operation to destabilize Iran’s government. It’s even less likely that they’ll mention that Iran’s democratically elected government was overthrown by the CIA and replaced by the heavy-handed Shah– a U.S. puppet– when it wanted to nationalize its oil fields back in 1953.

Such facts aren’t convenient for a U.S. government trying to seize the moral high ground while biding its time for the right moment to launch another unprovoked attack on a sovereign nation. WikiLeaks documents– disinformation or not– are being used for anti-Iran propaganda, OpEdNews

[5] Mr. Obama first made waves with his views on Iran policy in 2007, when he said during a Democratic debate that he would, as president, be willing to meet without preconditions with Iran’s leaders, and that the notion of not talking to one’s foes was “ridiculous.”

Since becoming president, Mr. Obama has pursued diplomacy, but his stance has become steadily more confrontational. Iran’s Nuclear Program, The New York Times

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Afghanistan: U.S. Spends $20 Billion Per Year for Air Conditioning in Tents

July 29th, 2010

This astonishing statistic is mentioned in the audio feature on the page linked below.

Via: PRI:

The term we were looking for is “Forward Operating Base” or FOB. The US has many FOBs in Iraq and Afghanistan. The large ones have many tents and other structures where personnel live and work. And all of them need to be heated in the winter, and cooled in the summer. That can take a lot of fuel.

Steve Anderson is a retired Brigadier General who was General David Petraeus’s chief logistician in Iraq. He says the Pentagon should find ways to make structures at FOBs and other military compounds more energy efficient, not only to save money and be greener, but also, to save lives.

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The U.S. military is funding a massive protection racket in Afghanistan, indirectly paying tens of millions of dollars to warlords, corrupt public officials and the Taliban to ensure safe passage of its supply convoys throughout the country, according to congressional investigators.

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By Jana Winter

Published June 17, 2010

| FOXNews.com

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