ISLAMABAD: Was there a top secret and mysterious operation of the US Marines going on inside the Marriott when it was attacked on Saturday evening? No one will confirm it but circumstantial evidence is in abundance.
Witnessed by many, including a PPP MNA and his friends, a US embassy truckload of steel boxes was unloaded and shifted inside the Marriott Hotel on the same night when Admiral Mike Mullen met Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and others in Islamabad.
Both the main gates (the entrance and the exit) of the hotel were closed while no one except the US Marines were either allowed to go near the truck or get the steel boxes unloaded or shift them inside the hotel. These steel boxes were not passed through the scanners installed at the entrance of the hotel lobby and were reportedly shifted to the fourth and fifth floors of the Marriott.
Besides several others, PPP MNA Mumtaz Alam Gilani and his two friends, Sajjad Chaudhry, a PPP leader, and one Bashir Nadeem, witnessed this mysterious activity to which no one other than the PPP MNA objected and protested.
A source present there told The News that after entertaining them with refreshments at the Nadia restaurant at midnight when Mumtaz Alam, along with his friends, was to leave the hotel, he found a white US embassy truck standing right in front of the hotel’s main entrance.
Both the In-gate and the Out-gate of the hotel were closed while almost a dozen well-built US Marines in their usual fatigues were unloading the steel boxes from the truck. No one, including the hotel security men, was either allowed to go near the truck or touch the steel boxes, which were being shifted inside the hotel but without passing through the scanners.
Upon inquiry, one of the three PPP friends who was waiting for the main gates of the hotel to open to get his car in, was informed that the suspicious boxes were shifted to the fourth and fifth floors of the hotel. Mumtaz Alam was furious both at the US Marines and the hotel security not only for the delay caused to them but also for the security lapse he was witnessing.
On his protest, there was absolutely no response from the Marines and the security men he approached were found helpless. Mumtaz Alam told the hotel security official that they were going to endanger the hotel and its security. He was also heard telling his friends that he would never visit the hotel again. He also threatened to raise the issue in parliament.
One does not know whether the PPP MNA revisited the hotel after that mysterious midnight but his brother Imtiaz Alam, who is a senior journalist, was in the same hotel when the truck exploded at the main gate of the hotel. Imtiaz Alam had a lucky escape and found his way out of the hotel with great difficulty in pitch darkness.
One of the lifts he was using fell to the ground floor just after he forced the door open on the 4th floor and got out of it.
KABUL, Afghanistan - The Afghan president said a deadly raid on a village by American and Afghan commandos has put new strain on relations with the United States and promised Thursday to punish those responsible.
U.S. officials have said that at least 30 militants, including a Taliban commander, and no more than seven civilians were killed during the Aug. 22 raid. Afghan officials, backed by the United Nations mission, insist that more than 90 civilians died, including dozens of children.
President Hamid Karzai’s comment come a day after he spoke to President Bush about the raid and how to prevent civilian casualties, his office said.
“President Bush told President Karzai that he grieves anytime innocents die,” White House national security spokesmanGordon Johndroe said Thursday.
Karzai said that following the raid “our relation with the foreigners got worst,” according to the statement from his office.
“In the last five years I have tried day and night to prevent these incidents from happening,” Karzai told the villagers assembled inside a mosque in Shindand, several miles away from Azizabad.
Karzai promised them that those responsible for the raid would face justice and be punished, the statement said. He already has fired two Afghan officers involved in the raid.
The U.S. has long said that Taliban militants pressure Afghan villagers to falsely claim civilian casualties, information warfare that does serious damage to the reputations of the U.S., NATO and the Western-backed Afghan government.
In Azizabad and other small villages where civilians are reported killed in combat, the Afghan government and international militaries pay about $2,000 for each person killed, giving villagers incentive to file false claims. U.S. officials acknowledge that payments have been made for people who never existed.
But the Afghan claims in the case of Azizabad have been backed by the United Nations own preliminary investigation, which said that some 60 children were among 90 people killed.
The dispute over the Azizabad raid has soured relations between Karzai and his key foreign supporters — the United States and other nations with troops fighting against the Taliban and other militants in Afghanistan.
Afghan officials say U.S. special forces and Afghan commandos raided the village while hundreds of people were gathered in a large compound for a memorial service honoring a tribal leader, Timor Shah, who was killed eight months ago by a rival.
A U.S. report released Tuesday said that up to seven civilians and between 30 and 35 Taliban militants were killed in the Azizabad operation in the early hours of Aug. 22.
The U.S. said its casualty numbers were determined by observation of militant movements during the engagement and onsite observations immediately after the battle.
Gen. David McKiernan, the commander of the NATO-led force in Afghanistan, said in a statement Wednesday that he “concurs with the findings” released by U.S.-led coalition command, whose troops were involved in the raid.
The U.S. report said American and Afghan forces approaching Azizabad took fire from militants that “justified use of well-aimed small-arms fire and close air support to defend the combined force.”
Afghan and some Western officials say there is video and photo evidence to prove their assertion that a large number of children were killed during the Azizabad raid.
None of that material has been made public yet.
Following the raid, Karzai ordered a review to examine whether the U.S. and NATO should be allowed to carry out airstrikes or raids in villages. Karzai also called for an updated “status of force” agreement between the Afghan government and foreign militaries.
Three U.S. soldiers killed four handcuffed and blindfolded Iraqi prisoners with pistol shots on the bank of a Baghdad canal last year, the New York Times reported on Wednesday.
Sergeant First Class Joseph P. Mayo, the platoon sergeant, and Sergeant Michael P. Leahy Jr., Company D’s senior medic and an acting squad leader, made sworn statements in January to Army investigators in Schweinfurt, Germany probing the incident, the newspaper reported on its website.
The men each described killing one of the Iraqi detainees, as directed by First Sergeant John E. Hatley, according to the statements. Hatley shot two other detainees with a pistol in the back of the head, Mayo and Leahy told investigators, according to the NYT.
U.S. soldiers cannot harm enemy combatants once they are disarmed and in custody, the NYT said.
A spokesman for the U.S. Army in Europe declined to comment, saying he could not speculate on any future legal action.
David Court, the lawyer in Germany named by the NYT as representing Hatley, was not immediately reachable.
According to Leahy’s statement, cited by the NYT, Army officials directed Hatley’s convoy to release the men because there was insufficient evidence to detain them.
“First Sergeant Hatley then made the call to take the detainees to a canal and kill them,” as retribution for the deaths of two soldiers from the unit, Leahy said in his statement.
“So the patrol went to the canal, and First Sergeant, Sgt. First Class Mayo and I took the detainees out of the back of the Bradley (fighting vehicle), lined them up and shot them,” he added, according to The Times. “Then we pushed the bodies into the canal and left.”
After the men were killed, Hatley told Leahy and Mayo to remove the Iraqis’ bloody blindfolds and plastic handcuffs, according to the newspaper. The three soldiers then shoved the bodies into the canal and drove back to their combat outpost, the paper said.
No charges have been filed against Hatley, Mayo or Leahy — all from Company D, First Battalion, Second Infantry, 172nd Infantry Brigade.
However, four other soldiers have been charged with conspiracy to commit premeditated murder relating to an incident that occurred last year in Baghdad, the U.S. Army in Europe said in a statement last month.
A hearing in that case opened on Tuesday and is still going on in the southern German town of Vilseck, the U.S. Army spokesman said on Wednesday.
Georgian Minister Temur Yakobashvili yesterday praised Israel for its role in training Georgian troops and said Israel should be proud of its military might.
“Israel should be proud of its military, which trained Georgian soldiers,” Yakobashvili, who is Jewish, told Army Radio in Hebrew. He was referring to a private Israeli group Georgia had hired.
Yakobashvili, Georgia’s minister of reintegration, said this training enabled Georgia to defend itself against Russian forces in the warfare that erupted last week in the separatist region of South Ossetia, Georgia.
Yakobashvili said a small group of Georgian soldiers were able to wipe out an entire Russian military division, thanks to the Israeli training.
“We killed 60 Russian soldiers yesterday alone,” said Yakobashvili. “The Russians have lost more than 50 tanks, and we have shot down 11 of their planes. They have sustained enormous damage in terms of manpower.”
Yakobashvili warned that the Russians would try to open another front in Abkhazia, another separatist region in Georgia, and he denied reports that the Georgian army was retreating. “The Georgian forces are not retreating. We move our military according to security needs,” he said.
He also denied that Russian troops had struck Georgia’s international airport.
“There was no attack on the airport in Tbilisi. It was a factory that produces combat airplanes,” said Yakobashvili.
“The whole world is starting to understand that what is happening here will determine the future of this region, the future price of crude oil, the future of central Asia, and the future of NATO,” the Georgian minister added. “Every bomb that falls over our heads is an attack on democracy, on the European Union and on America.”
BAGHDAD — The tanks were full of enough clean drinking water for some 200,000 Iraqis at a new distribution station in eastern Baghdad, but local officials struggled Saturday to agree on where it should go.
The dilemma was an example of the obstacles facing the Iraqis and their American backers as they try to rebuild the country. The Iraqi government is flush with oil money, but officials often lack the know-how and experience to dole out the cash efficiently.
U.S. soldiers and Iraqi officials began working on the water distribution site in the former Shiite militia stronghold of New Baghdad in April — part of a broader strategy to provide immediate relief in hopes of boosting confidence in the Iraqi government and preventing militants from regaining support.
Iraq’s government provided $191,000 for the project, which is located on a joint U.S.-Iraqi military base in the area.
Water can either be collected by people filling bottles and other containers from three public taps on the base or from tanker trucks that will deliver it to collection points elsewhere in the neighborhood.
American officials acknowledge it’s a short-term solution. Better if people could receive clean water through their faucets at home.
But the Americans say the distribution system will at least provide Iraqis breathing room to improve infrastructure that has been devastated after more than five years of violence.
Officials need “to rapidly and responsibly meet the needs of the Iraqi people” but also to “sustain, to plan, to budget, execute and provide those services for the people,” said Brig. Gen. Robin Swan, a deputy commander for the 4th Infantry Division in Baghdad.
Iraqis have been able to use the taps at the facility, which has a storage capacity of about 52,800 gallons. But the local municipal council hasn’t decided how many trucks can be used and where they should deliver the water.
“The challenge has been to come up with a distribution plan,” said Maj. Gary Giles, a civil affairs officer with the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, which is spearheading the project. “Here we’re having some fits and starts.”
But Giles, 50, was optimistic the issue would be resolved so the trucks can start delivering water by the end of the week.
Mudhafer Ali, the official in charge of the Baghdad water pipes network, said the water would be distributed by trucks carrying nearly 4,000 gallons each and there was a plan to eventually expand the project to provide irrigation water.
“There is an agreement to use five trucks that will work for eight hours to deliver water to the residents,” he said.
Filthy drinking water that is often contaminated by sewage that overflows into the Tigris River has raised fears of cholera and other diseases. Baghdad’s network of aging pipes also suffers damage because impoverished and displaced Iraqis frequently tap into it illegally.
A cholera outbreak in northern Iraq last year killed 14 people, but U.S. military officials say no confirmed cases of cholera have been recorded this year.
U.S. and Iraqi officials insist that the tap water in most of Baghdad is of good quality. The U.S. military claims that nine water treatment plants run by the city’s water authority are capable of producing more than 2 million cubic meters of potable water per day, a 30% increase from last year.
Still, many people lack clean water.
Recognizing the urgency, the Iraqi government has invested or plans to invest more than $200 million, in addition to $50 million in U.S. military emergency funds. More than 100 projects are in the works to improve the capital’s water supply, according to the U.S. military.
Two-thirds of the raw sewage produced in the capital flows untreated into rivers and waterways, Stuart Bowen, special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, said in his quarterly report released last month.
But the report also found that more Iraqis nationwide have access to potable water now than before the U.S.-led war began in March 2003 — 20 million people compared with 12.9 million previously.
The World Bank has estimated that it would take $14.4 billion to rebuild the Iraqi public works and water system.
Another water distribution site launched last week in Baladiyat, another eastern Shiite neighborhood, has been welcomed by residents.
“We are suffering a lot due to this problem especially in summer. Water is very vital to us and we hope that further measures are taken to lessen our suffering,” said Abdul-Hussein Hanoun, a 45-year-old Education Ministry worker who lives near the station.
Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) has warned millions of radio listeners that the United States is heading into an illegal attack on Iran, stating his amazement at members of Congress who have openly voiced support for a criminal nuclear strike.
“If we do (attack) it is going to be a disaster,” the congressman told the Alex Jones radio show. “I was astounded to see on one of the networks the other day that the debate was not are we going to attack, but are we going to attack before or after the election?” Paul continued.
Paul recently voiced concern over House Congressional Resolution 362 which he has dubbed a “virtual Iran war resolution.”
“If that comes up it is demanding that the president [put in place] an absolute blockade of the entire country of Iran, and punish any country or any business group around the world if they trade with Iran,” Paul told listeners.
Experts have predicted gas will rise to $6 per gallon if the resolution passes. Paul believes that may happen anyway, just by anticipation.
“The frightening thing is they say they are taking no options off the table, even nuclear first strike,” Paul said. Paul believes from talking with his contacts in and around Congress that a strike on Iran has already been green-lighted.
“That is my sense because the Democratic leaders in the House are proposing no resistance whatsoever, Paul said. “We saw this when a supplemental bill came up and the president asked for $107 billion for the war, the Democrat leadership gave them $162 billion.
“It is still totally bewildering to me when I see men and women in the Congress that I know and like doing this just to get along. Most of them will say ‘I agree with you on all you say but the Iranians are bad people and they might attack us some day. . . . I hear members of Congress saying if we could only nuke them.’”
Ron Paul also spoke in detail about his new Campaign For Liberty Group and his views on the upcoming election.
“There is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.”
Should those who ordered war crimes be held to account? With the conclusion of the Bush regime approaching, many people are dubious, even those horrified by Administration actions. They fear a long, divisive ordeal that could tear the country apart. They note that such division could make it far harder for the country to address the many other crises it is facing. They see the upcoming elections as a better way to set the country on a new path.
Many Democrats in particular are proposing to let bygones be bygones and move on to confront the problems of the future, rather than dwelling on the past. The Democratic leadership sees rising gas prices, foreclosures, and health care costs, as well as widespread dissatisfaction with the direction of the country, as playing in their favor. Why risk it all by playing the war crimes blame game? Perhaps some Democratic leaders are also concerned that their own role in enabling or even encouraging war crimes might be exposed.
Meanwhile, the evidence confirming not only a deliberate policy of torture, but of conspiring in an illegal war of aggression and conducting a criminal occupation, continues to pile ever higher. Bush’s own press secretary Scott McClelland has revealed in his book, What Happened, how deliberately the public was misled to foment the attack on Iraq. Philippe Sands’ new book, Torture Team, has shown how the top legal and political leadership fought for a policy of torture–circumventing and misleading top military officials to do so. Jane Mayer’s The Dark Side, reveals that a secret report by the Red Cross–given to the CIA and shared with President Bush and Condoleezza Rice–found that US interrogation methods are “categorically” torture and that the “abuse constituted war crimes, placing the highest officials in the US government in jeopardy of being prosecuted.”
Despite the reluctance to open what many see as a can of worms, there are fresh moves on many fronts to hold top US officials accountable for war crimes.
Courts: US courts have issued a barrage of decisions against the Administration’s claim that they can do anything and still be within the law. The Supreme Court ruled June 12 that the Administration cannot deny habeas corpus rights to Guantánamo detainees. The DC Circuit Court of Appeals on June 30 overturned the Pentagon’s enemy combatant designation of a Chinese Muslim held in Guantánamo for the last six years. A Maine jury in April acquitted the Bangor Six of criminal trespass charges stemming from protesters’ claim that the “Constitution was being violated by the Bush Administration’s involvement in Iraq.”
Congressional investigation: Rep. John Conyers has recently brought top policy-makers, including former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo, Vice President Cheney’s Chief of Staff David Addington, and this week former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith and former Attorney General John Ashcroft before a House Judiciary subcommittee and grilled them on their role crafting the Administration’s torture policy.
Senate hearings in June revealed that treatment of Guantánamo captives was modeled on techniques allegedly used by Communist China to force false confessions from US soldiers.
Impeachment: Despite Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s instruction to keep impeachment “off the table,” Rep. Dennis Kucinich for the first time brought an impeachment resolution to the House floor that incorporated a devastating, thirty-five article indictment spelling out Bush Administration war crimes and crimes against the Constitution. Now Rep. Conyers has announced that the Judiciary Committee will hold hearings on the charges July 25. Even after the Bush Administration leaves office, the judges it appointed who appear complicit in war crimes–notably torture policy architect Judge Jay S. Bybee–could still be impeached.
Truth commission: In response to General Taguba’s accusations, New York Times Op-Ed columnist Nicholas D. Kristof has just called for the establishment of a truth commission–like that of post-Apartheid South Africa–with subpoena power to investigate the abuses in the aftermath of 9/11 and “lead a process of soul searching and national cleansing.”
International: In May, Vanity Fair magazine published an article by British human rights attorney Philippe Sands, in which he described the reasons Administration lawyers face a real risk of criminal investigations if they stray beyond US borders. The British parliament is about to launch an investigation of Washington’s lying to the British government about its use of its facilities for “extraordinary rendition.” Constitutional lawyer Jonathan Turley recently said, “I think it might in fact be time for the United States to be held internationally to a tribunal. I never thought in my lifetime I would say that.” Colin Powell’s former chief of staff Lawrence Wilkerson publicly advised Feith, Addington, And Albert Gonzales “never to travel outside the U.S., except perhaps to Saudi Arabia and Israel.”
Prosecution: According to a recent Mellman Group survey commissioned by the American Civil Liberties Union, Americans of all political stripes overwhelmingly support the appointment of an independent prosecutor to investigate both the destruction of the CIA’s interrogation tapes and the possible use of torture by the agency. Every segment of the electorate–including majorities of Democrats (82 percent), independents (62 percent), and Republicans (51 percent) — want to hold this administration accountable for its role in the destruction of the torture tapes.
Vincent Bugliosi, the former Los Angeles County Prosecutor who has won twenty-one convictions in murder trials, including Charles Manson’s, has just published The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, which argues that there is overwhelming evidence President Bush took the nation to war in Iraq under false pretenses and must be prosecuted for the consequent deaths of over 4,000 US soldiers.
Dean Lawrence Velvel of the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover is planning a September conference to map out war crimes prosecutions against President Bush and other administration officials. Velvel says that “plans will be laid and necessary organizational structures set up, to pursue the guilty as long as necessary and, if need be, to the ends of the Earth.” Reps. John Conyers, Jerrold Nadler, and Bill Delahunt have called on Attorney General Michael Mukasey to appoint a special counsel to investigate the rendition of Canadian citizen Maher Arar to Syria.
Citizen action: Voters in Brattleboro and Marlboro, Vermont this spring approved a measure that instructs police to arrest President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for “crimes against our Constitution,” should they venture into those precincts.
All these developments suggest approaches that might be used to hold Bush Administration war criminals accountable. Establishing accountability for US war crimes in the Iraq war era is the sine qua non for initiating a new era on different principles. Here are nine reasons why we must not let bygones be bygones:
1. World peace cannot be achieved without human rights and accountability.
According to Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, chief American prosecutor at the Nuremberg Tribunals, “The ultimate step in avoiding periodic wars, which are inevitable in a system of international lawlessness, is to make statesmen responsible to law.” Moving in that direction will be impossible unless such responsibility applies to the statesmen of the world’s most powerful countries, and above all the world’s sole superpower. US support for the war crimes charges like those just brought by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir will represent little more than hypocrisy if US Presidents are not held to the same standard.
2. The rule of law is central to our democracy.
Most Americans believe that even the highest officials are bound by law. If we send mentally-disabled juveniles to prison as adults, but let government officials who authorize torture and launch illegal wars go scot-free, we destroy the very basis of the rule of law.
3. We must not allow precedents to be set that promote war crimes.
Executive action unchallenged by Congress changes the way our law is interpreted. According to Robert Borosage, writing for Huffington Post, “If Bush’s extreme assertions of power are not challenged by the Congress, they end up not simply creating new law, they could end up rewriting the Constitution itself.”
4. We must restore the principles of democracy to our government.
The claim that the President, as commander-in-chief, can exercise the unlimited powers of a king or dictator strikes at the very heart of our democracy. As Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson put it, we, as citizens, would “submit ourselves to rules only if under rules.” Countries like Chile can attest that the restoration of democracy and the rule of law requires more than voting a new party into office–it requires a rejection of impunity for the criminal acts of government officials.
5. We must forestall an imperialist resurgence.
When they are out of office, the advocates of imperial expansion and global domination have proven brilliant at lying in wait to undermine and destroy their opponents.
They did it to destroy the presidencies of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. They’ll do it again to an Obama Administration unless their machinations are exposed and discredited first.
6. We must have national consensus on the real reasons for the Bush Administration’s failures.
Republicans are preparing to dominate future decades of American politics by blaming the failure of the Iraq war on those who “sent a signal” that the US would not “stay the course” whatever the cost. Establishing the real reasons for the failure of the US in Iraq–the criminal and anti-democratic character of the war–is the necessary condition for defeating that effort.
7. We must restore America’s damaged reputation abroad.
The world has watched as the United States–the self-proclaimed steward of democracy–has systematically broken the letter and spirit of its Constitution, violated international treaties, and ignored basic moral tenets of humanity. As former Navy General Counsel Alberto Mora recently pointed out to the Senate Armed Services Committee, our nation’s “policy of cruelty” has violated our “overarching foreign policy interests and our national security.” To establish international legitimacy, we must demonstrate that we are capable of holding our leaders to account.
8. We must lay the basis for major change in US foreign policy.
Real security in the era of global warming and nuclear proliferation must be based on international cooperation. But genuine cooperation requires that the US entirely repudiate the course of the past eight years. The American people must understand why international cooperation rather than pursuit of global domination is necessary to their own security. And other countries must be convinced that we really mean it.
9. We must deter future US war crimes.
The specter of more war crimes haunts our future. Rumors continue to circulate about an American or American-backed Israeli attack on Iran. A recently introduced House resolution promoted by AIPAC “demands” that the President initiate what is effectively a blockade against Iran–an act seen by some as tantamount to a declaration of war. Nothing could provide a greater deterrent to such future war crimes than establishing accountability for those of the past.
Holding war criminals accountable will require placing the long-term well-being of our country and the world ahead of short-term political advantage. As Rep. Wexler put it, “We owe it to the American people and history to pursue the wrongdoing of this Administration whether or not it helps us politically or in the next election. Our actions will properly define the Bush Administration in the eyes of history and that is the true test.”
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said the grouping “will build peace in the Mediterranean together, like yesterday we built peace in Europe”.
The Hour of Truth: The Euromediterranean Project To Become the Mediterranean Union
March 4th 2008 - the above story appeared on a blog in Europe. They warned the Irish not to buy into the plan. Ireland voted down the opportunity to join,… then the real pressure started!
On an Ancient Sea, Europe Dreams and Schemes The “Ancient Sea…” article above is from the New York Times
August 5th 2007
“The latest example comes from France’s new president, Nicolas Sarkozy, whose efforts to move Europe, not to mention French arms industries, closer to northern Africa are being presented within a vision of a new union of nations along the Mediterranean.”
(I recieved an email asking if the launch of the Mediterranean Union signed a few days ago might be the start of the 7 year tribulation? - Then I was forwarded this email from a friend comparing two maps that detail the Roman empire and the plans for Europe now. Seems that history is a broken record, broken record, broken record)
Map of The Roman Empire
This map shows the extent of the Roman Empire at three times in history: at the death of Caesar (44 B.C.E.), at the death of Augustus (14 C.E.), and at the death of Marcus Aurelius (180 C.E.). The gains are cumulative: this means that Aurelius’ empire included the areas that were in Caesar’s and Augustus’ realm, not just the areas colored red.
Caesar re-founded Corinth in 44 C.E., when the Roman Empire had spread to the darker orange color. This area plus the green area gives an idea of the extent of the Roman Empire during the time of Paul.
The Mediterranean Union: Dividing the Middle East and North Africa - By Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya
The Middle East and North Africa are in the process of being divided into spheres of influence between the European Union and the United States. Essentially the division of the Middle East and North Africa are between Franco-German and Anglo-American interests. There is a unified stance within NATO in regards to this re-division.
While on the surface Iraq falls within the Anglo-American orbit, the Eastern Mediterranean and its gas resources have been set to fall into the Franco-German orbit. In fact the Mediterranean region as a whole, from Morocco and gas-rich Algeria to the Levant is coveted by Franco-German interests, but there is more to this complex picture than meets the eye.
Unknown to the global public, several milestone decisions have been made to end Franco-German and Anglo-American squabbling that will ultimately call for joint management of the spoils of war. Franco-German and Anglo-American interests are converging into one. The reality of the situation is that the area ranging from Mauritania to the Persian Gulf and Afghanistan will be shared by America, Britain, France, Germany, and their allies.
These spheres of influence are really spheres of responsibility in a long campaign to restructure the Middle East and North Africa. The services agreement between Total S.A. and Chevron to jointly develop Iraqi energy reserves, NATO agreements in the Persian Gulf, and the establishment of a permanent French military base in the U.A.E. are all results of these objectives. Militant globalization and force is at work from Iraq and Lebanon to the Maghreb.
Redrawing European Security Borders: The Road to Redrawing the Map of the Middle East
“The politics [foreign policy] of a state are in its geography.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte I, Emperor of the French, King of Italy, Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine, and Mediator of the Helvetic (Swiss) Confederation
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children. Hosea 4:6
KABUL—The war in Afghanistan reached a wrenching milestone this summer: For the second month in a row, U.S. and coalition troop deaths in the country surpassed casualties in Iraq. This is driven in large part, U.S. officials point out, by simple cause and effect. Marines flowed into southern Afghanistan earlier this year to rout firmly entrenched Taliban fighters, prompting a spike in combat in territory where NATO forces previously didn’t have the manpower to send troops. “We’re doing something we haven’t done in seven years, which is go after the Taliban where they’re living,” says a U.S. official.
But amid a well-coordinated assassination attempt on Afghan President Hamid Karzai and large-scale bombings last week in the capitals of both Afghanistan and Pakistan, U.S. forces are keenly aware that they are facing an increasingly complex enemy here—what U.S. military officials now call a syndicate—composed not only of Taliban fighters but also powerful warlords who were once on the payroll of the Central Intelligence Agency. “You could almost describe the insurgency as having two branches,” says a senior U.S. military official here. “It’s the Taliban in the south and a ‘rainbow coalition’ in the east.”
Indeed, along with a smattering of Afghan tribal groups, Pakistani extremists, and drug kingpins, two of the most dangerous players are violent Afghan Islamists named Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Jalaluddin Haqqani, according to U.S. officials. In recent weeks, Hekmatyar has called upon Pakistani militants to attack U.S. targets, while the Haqqani network is blamed for three large vehicle bombings, along with the attempted assassination of Karzai in April.
Ironically, these two warlords—currently at the top of America’s list of most wanted men in Afghanistan—were once among America’s most valued allies. In the 1980s, the CIA funneled hundreds of millions of dollars in weapons and ammunition to help them battle the Soviet Army during its occupation of Afghanistan. Hekmatyar, then widely considered by Washington to be a reliable anti-Soviet rebel, was even flown to the United States by the CIA in 1985.
“He was the most radical of the radicals,” recalls former Rep. Charlie Wilson, immortalized in the recent film Charlie Wilson’s War for his role in directing U.S. military aid to anti-Soviet Afghan warlords. “He didn’t hate us as much as he hated the Soviets,” he adds, “but he sure didn’t like us much.” In his early years, the warlord distinguished himself by throwing acid in the faces of unveiled women. Today, a senior defense official says Hekmatyar is “as vicious as they come.” In 2002, the CIA shot a Hellfire missile from an unmanned drone in an effort to kill him.
U.S. officials had an even higher opinion of Haqqani, who was considered the most effective rebel warlord. “I adored Haqqani. When I was in Afghanistan, Haqqani was the guy who made sure I would get out,” says Wilson. “He was a marvelous leader and very beloved in his territory.”
Haqqani was also one of the leading advocates of the so-called Arab Afghans, deftly organizing Arab volunteer fighters who came to wage jihad against the Soviet Union and helping to protect future al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Today, U.S. military officials are not certain that Haqqani is alive, though he was featured in an undated video that recently surfaced. “Either way, the Haqqani we’re fighting now is the son”—34-year-old Sirajuddin Haqqani—says the senior U.S. military official. “He gets a lot of benefit from his father’s prestige.”
Today, the Haqqani network is driving the recent rise in violence in eastern Afghanistan, according to U.S. military officials. Haqqani “is definitely the strongest” enemy in the border provinces of Paktia, Paktika, and Khost, known among military officials as p2k. The senior U.S. military official notes that Haqqani is increasingly moving to more-asymmetric means of attack to avoid straight-on shootouts with better-armed U.S. forces, a general tactical guidance that came from Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar last year. To that end, U.S. military officials estimate that they have seen a 10 percent rise in use of roadside bombs, which now account for one third of the attacks against coalition forces in the country.
At the highest levels, Hekmatyar and the Haqqani network cooperate and find sanctuary in Pakistan, where the country’s political turmoil and suspension of operations in the lawless tribal areas have facilitated increased attacks in Afghanistan. Of the two warlords, Hekmatyar, by U.S. military estimates, “has a wider geographic coverage” and greater political credibility. A recent press release issued by Hekmatyar’s spokesman thanked the Pakistani “mujahideen” for their support in the Afghan war against American and other “occupation forces.” It noted, however, that the efforts allow the international community to blame Pakistan for meddling in Afghan affairs and requested that fighters restrict their activities for now to “U.S. installations and interests within Pakistan.”
A former politician, Hekmatyar founded the Hizb-e-Islami Gulbuddin (known as hig), an offshoot of which remains a popular party in the Afghan parliament. “There’s blue—or ‘good’—hig and red—or ‘bad’—hig,” says the senior U.S. military official. “About half of his group sides with the government; the more recalcitrant are still joining the insurgency.”
But though the Hekmatyar and Haqqani networks have loose alliances and similar goals, each has its own turf. “They are swimming in the same stream, but they are not unified. There is no Ho Chi Minh,” says the U.S. military official. “They have the same broad generic approaches, and it works. The bottom line is that if your only mission is to wreak havoc in Afghanistan, you don’t have to be coordinated—and what they’re doing is plenty good enough to stir up problems in this country.”
In the course of conducting these operations, insurgents have benefited greatly from the shortage of U.S. and allied troops here, say U.S. officials. Earlier this month, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters that he is “deeply troubled” by the increasing violence in Afghanistan but emphasized that troop levels in Iraq precluded a further increase in forces. “We need more troops there,” he said in Washington. “But I don’t have the troops I can reach for.”
There are signs, however, that the Pentagon’s priorities are shifting as conditions improve in Iraq. The Defense Department last week moved an aircraft carrier from Iraq war duty in the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea, shortening the distance that strike planes must fly to provide air support in Afghanistan. And the Pentagon recently announced that it is extending by one month the seven-month deployment of 2,200 of the 3,200 marines sent to Afghanistan in March.
Still, U.S. officials are in widespread agreement that there aren’t enough forces in the country. There are currently 32,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan backed by some 25,000 allied troops under NATO command, in total roughly 37 percent of force levels in Iraq. “There should be another 20,000 marines” in Afghanistan, says the U.S. official. “We’re advancing, but we’re doing it with troop levels that are unacceptably low.” Mullen, too, has raised questions about the consequences of what he calls an “economy of force” campaign. “What we’re going through right now is an ability to, in almost every single case, win from the combat standpoint,” said Mullen. He added, however, that “we don’t have enough troops there to hold. And that is key, clearly, to the future of being able to succeed in Afghanistan.” l
With Kevin Whitelaw in Washington and Aamir Latif in Pakistan
In a secret report last year, the Red Cross found evidence of the CIA using torture on prisoners that would make the Bush administration guilty of war crimes, The New York Times reported Friday.
The Red Cross determined the culpability of the Bush administration after interviewing prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, according to the article.
Prisoner Abu Zubaydahwho said he had been waterboarded, “slammed against the walls” and confined in boxes “so small he said he had to double up his limbs in the fetal position.”
The information comes from a new book written by Jane Meyer, who has frequently published articles concerning counter-terrorism in The New Yorker.
The book is titled “The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals,” and will be released next week.
Mayer cited “sources familiar with the report” to explain the confidential document as a warning “that the abuse constituted war crimes, placing the highest officials in the U.S. government in jeopardy of being prosecuted.”
The report was submitted to CIA last year and concluded that American interrogation methods are “categorically” torture that violates both domestic and international law, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow reported Friday.
Although the CIA had already admitted to the use of waterboarding, Meyer says in the book that several CIA officers confirm the findings of the Red Cross, including the other forms of torture mentioned.
Maddow called George W. Bush a “torture-approver-in-chief who has yet to be held to account for anything” and said that congressman Dennis Kucinich had reintroduced his articles of impeachment against the president.
Maddow questioned constitutional law expert Johnathan Turley about the development.
“The problem for the bush admin is that they perfected plausible deniability techniques,” Turley said. “They bring out one or two people that are willing to debate on cable shows whether waterboarding is torture and it leaves the impression that its a closed question.
“It’s not. It’s just like the domestic surveillance program that the federal court said just a week ago was also not just a closed question.”
When asked by Maddow if the chances are now greater that Bush will be prosecuted now or after leaving office by the international community, Turley compared the situation to Serbia in the early 90s.
“I’d never thought I would say this, but I think it might in fact be time for the United States to be held internationally to a tribunal. I never thought in my lifetime I would say that.”
Source: Global Research.ca, August 5, 2005, Title: “Halliburton Secretly Doing Business With Key Member of Iran’s Nuclear Team,” Author: Jason Leopold
Faculty Evaluator: Catherine Nelson
Student Researchers: Kristine Medeiros and Pla Herr
According to journalist Jason Leopold, sources at former Cheney company Halliburton allege that, as recently as January of 2005, Halliburton sold key components for a nuclear reactor to an Iranian oil development company. Leopold says his Halliburton sources have intimate knowledge of the business dealings of both Halliburton and Oriental Oil Kish, one of Iran’s largest private oil companies.
Additionally, throughout 2004 and 2005, Halliburton worked closely with Cyrus Nasseri, the vice chairman of the board of directors of Iran-based Oriental Oil Kish, to develop oil projects in Iran. Nasseri is also a key member of Iran’s nuclear development team. Nasseri was interrogated by Iranian authorities in late July 2005 for allegedly providing Halliburton with Iran’s nuclear secrets. Iranian government officials charged Nasseri with accepting as much as $1 million in bribes from Halliburton for this information.
Oriental Oil Kish dealings with Halliburton first became public knowledge in January 2005 when the company announced that it had subcontracted parts of the South Pars gas-drilling project to Halliburton Products and Services, a subsidiary of Dallas-based Halliburton that is registered to the Cayman Islands. Following the announcement, Halliburton claimed that the South Pars gas field project in Tehran would be its last project in Iran. According to a BBC report, Halliburton, which took thirty to forty million dollars from its Iranian operations in 2003, “was winding down its work due to a poor business environment.”
However, Halliburton has a long history of doing business in Iran, starting as early as 1995, while Vice President Cheney was chief executive of the company. Leopold quotes a February 2001 report published in the Wall Street Journal, “Halliburton Products and Services Ltd., works behind an unmarked door on the ninth floor of a new north Tehran tower block. A brochure declares that the company was registered in 1975 in the Cayman Islands, is based in the Persian Gulf sheikdom of Dubai and is “non-American.” But like the sign over the receptionist’s head, the brochure bears the company’s name and red emblem, and offers services from Halliburton units around the world.” Moreover mail sent to the company’s offices in Tehran and the Cayman Islands is forwarded directly to its Dallas headquarters.
In an attempt to curtail Halliburton and other U.S. companies from engaging in business dealings with rogue nations such as Libya, Iran, and Syria, an amendment was approved in the Senate on July 26, 2005. The amendment, sponsored by Senator Susan Collins R-Maine, would penalize companies that continue to skirt U.S. law by setting up offshore subsidiaries as a way to legally conduct and avoid U.S. sanctions under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).
A letter, drafted by trade groups representing corporate executives, vehemently objected to the amendment, saying it would lead to further hatred and perhaps incite terrorist attacks on the U.S. and “greatly strain relations with the United States primary trading partners.” The letter warned that, “Foreign governments view U.S. efforts to dictate their foreign and commercial policy as violations of sovereignty often leading them to adopt retaliatory measures more at odds with U.S. goals.”
Collins supports the legislation, stating, “It prevents U.S. corporations from creating a shell company somewhere else in order to do business with rogue, terror-sponsoring nations such as Syria and Iran. The bottom line is that if a U.S. company is evading sanctions to do business with one of these countries, they are helping to prop up countries that support terrorism—most often aimed against America.
UPDATE BY JASON LEOPOLD
During a trip to the Middle East in March 1996, Vice President Dick Cheney told a group of mostly U.S. businessmen that Congress should ease sanctions in Iran and Libya to foster better relationships, a statement that, in hindsight, is completely hypocritical considering the Bush administration’s foreign policy.
“Let me make a generalized statement about a trend I see in the U.S. Congress that I find disturbing, that applies not only with respect to the Iranian situation but a number of others as well,” Cheney said. “I think we Americans sometimes make mistakes . . . There seems to be an assumption that somehow we know what’s best for everybody else and that we are going to use our economic clout to get everybody else to live the way we would like.”
Cheney was the chief executive of Halliburton Corporation at the time he uttered those words. It was Cheney who directed Halliburton toward aggressive business dealings with Iran—in violation of U.S. law—in the mid-1990s, which continued through 2005 and is the reason Iran has the capability to enrich weapons-grade uranium.
It was Halliburton’s secret sale of centrifuges to Iran that helped get the uranium enrichment program off the ground, according to a three-year investigation that includes interviews conducted with more than a dozen current and former Halliburton employees.
If the U.S. ends up engaged in a war with Iran in the future, Cheney and Halliburton will bear the brunt of the blame.
But this shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone who has been following Halliburton’s business activities over the past decade. The company has a long, documented history of violating U.S. sanctions and conducting business with so-called rogue nations.
No, what’s disturbing about these facts is how little attention it has received from the mainstream media. But the public record speaks for itself, as do the thousands of pages of documents obtained by various federal agencies that show how Halliburton’s business dealings in Iran helped fund terrorist activities there—including the country’s nuclear enrichment program.
When I asked Wendy Hall, a spokeswoman for Halliburton, a couple of years ago if Halliburton would stop doing business with Iran because of concerns that the company helped fund terrorism she said, “No.” “We believe that decisions as to the nature of such governments and their actions are better made by governmental authorities and international entities such as the United Nations as opposed to individual persons or companies,” Hall said. “Putting politics aside, we and our affiliates operate in countries to the extent it is legally permissible, where our customers are active as they expect us to provide oilfield services support to their international operations. “We do not always agree with policies or actions of governments in every place that we do business and make no excuses for their behaviors. Due to the long-term nature of our business and the inevitability of political and social change, it is neither prudent nor appropriate for our company to establish our own country-by-country foreign policy.”
Halliburton first started doing business in Iran as early as 1995, while Vice President Cheney was chief executive of the company and in possible violation of U.S. sanctions.
An executive order signed by former President Bill Clinton in March 1995 prohibits “new investments (in Iran) by U.S. persons, including commitment of funds or other assets.” It also bars U.S. companies from performing services “that would benefit the Iranian oil industry” and provide Iran with the financial means to engage in terrorist activity.
When Bush and Cheney came into office in 2001, their administration decided it would not punish foreign oil and gas companies that invest in those countries. The sanctions imposed on countries like Iran and Libya before Bush became president were blasted by Cheney, who gave frequent speeches on the need for U.S. companies to compete with their foreign competitors, despite claims that those countries may have ties to terrorism.
“I think we’d be better off if we, in fact, backed off those sanctions (on Iran), didn’t try to impose secondary boycotts on companies . . . trying to do business over there . . . and instead started to rebuild those relationships,” Cheney said during a 1998 business trip to Sydney, Australia, according to Australia’s Illawarra Mercury newspaper.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008 UPDATE: ABC NEWS have now changed their report, without even noting the change in the update time of the article, which remains 9:20. It seems the corporate media are perfectly happy to cover up their own mistakes with no acknowledgement whatsoever.
USA Today has now reported Ventura’s denial, a story which includes ABC News’ original headline, which has now been amended with a question mark, as has the text of the story with no notification of the change.
Why ABC News reported that Ventura was running is a mystery, as nowhere in the NPR interview (screenshot below) does Ventura state that he has decided to run.
Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura has exclusively told Prison Planet that an ABC News report which claims that Ventura will launch a run for the Senate is a “total lie” and a “flat out misrepresentation.”
ABC News’ Senior National Correspondent Jake Tapper claims in a story today, “In an interview with NPR’s David Welna that ran today former Gov. Jesse “The Body” Ventura, Ind-Minn., says he will run for Senate, challenging incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., whom Ventura defeated for governor in 1998, as well as Democratic nominee and former Saturday Night Live humorist Al Franken.”
Syndicated radio show host Alex Jones called Ventura this morning and confirmed that the report was completely inaccurate.
Ventura told Jones the report was a “total lie” and a “flat out misrepresentation,” adding that he would announce his decision before the July 15th filing deadline.
Ventura explained that NPR’s Welna asked why he would run for Senate if he ultimately came to that decision. Ventura did not state that he would run for Senate in the interview.
Tapper’s report appeared on the Drudge Report this morning and has not been amended at time of press. Could the fraudulent pre-empting of Ventura’s announcement be a political ploy to deflate his eventual entrance into the race or is it merely a case of shoddy journalism on behalf of the corporate media?
Former Governor Ventura made headlines earlier this year when he appeared on The Alex Jones Show to share his concerns about the official 9/11 story and his contention that WTC 7, the building that was not hit by a plane but collapsed in its own footprint within 7 seconds on 9/11, was intentionally demolished.
Ventura appears in Alex Jones’ new film The 9/11 Chronicles Part One: Truth Rising. His latest book Don’t Start The Revolution Without Me has been a bestseller on the New York Times list.
Last night on MSNBC’s Coundown, George Washington law professor Jonathan Turley noted that just this week, a federal judge rejected President Bush’s claim that his “constitutional authority as commander in chief trumped” the FISA wiretapping law. Judge Vaughn Walker explicitly stated that the President is bound by FISA
Congress appears clearly to have intended to — and did — establish the exclusive means for foreign intelligence activities to be conducted. Whatever power the executive may otherwise have had in this regard, FISA limits the power of the executive branch to conduct such activities and it limits the executive branch’s authority to assert the state secrets privilege in response to challenges to the legality of its foreign intelligence surveillance activities.
In other words, when Bush contravened the FISA law by authoring warrantless wiretaps through the National Security Agency, he broke the law. Turley said last night that this is an “inconvenient fact” for many in Congress to admit:
Nobody wants to have a confrontation over the fact that the President committed a felony – not one, but at least 30 times. That’s a very inconvenient fact right now in Washington.
Bush has acknowledged that he reauthorized his illegal wiretapping program “more than 30 times since the September the 11th attacks.”
MOSCOW — Russia will be forced to make a military response if the U.S.-Czech missile defense agreement is ratified, the Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.
The statement came hours after U.S. and Czech officials reached an initial agreement on deploying elements of a missile defense system in the Eastern European country.
Russia says the system would severely undermine European security balances by weakening Russia’s missile capacity.
If the agreement is ratified, “we will be forced to react not with diplomatic, but with military-technical methods,” the Foreign Ministry statement said. It did not give specifics of what the response would entail.
In February, then-President Vladimir Putin said Russia could aim missiles toward prospective missile defense sites and deploy missiles in the Baltic Sea region of Kaliningrad, which borders Poland, if the missile defense plan went forward.
The U.S. has pushed the plan as necessary to prevent missile attacks by rogue nations, pointing to Iran as a particular concern. But Russia dismisses the likelihood of such threats.
Just days before the Senate will convene to give a final blessing to President Bush’s secret, warrantless wiretapping program, a federal court judge ruled that his legal justification for the surveillance has no legal merit.
He’s the same judge Congress is trying to save the nation’s telecoms, such as AT&T, Verizon and Sprint, from having to face in court.
Late Wednesday, U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn Walker issued a ruling (.pdf) in a case against the government alleging illegal spying, finding that in 1978 Congress had clearly set out the rules for wiretapping inside the United States and that Bush’s claims to have inherent authority outside of those rules did not pass Constitutional muster.
Congress appears clearly to have intended to — and did — establish the exclusive means for foreign intelligence surveillance activities to be conducted. Whatever power the executive may otherwise have had in this regard, FISA limits the power of the executive branch to conduct such activities and it limits the executive branch’s authority to assert the state secrets privilege in response to challenges to the legality of its foreign intelligence surveillance activities.
Walker, the chief judge of the Northern District of California, affirmed that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is the exclusive legal method for conducting surveillance inside the United States against suspected spies and terrorist. The Bush Administration argues that Congress’s vote to authorize military force against Al Qaeda and the president’s inherent war time powers were exceptions to the exclusivity provision.
Not so, according to Walker:
This provision and its legislative history left no doubt that Congress intended to displace entirely the various warrantless wiretapping and surveillance programs undertaken by the executive branch and to leave no room for the president to undertake warrantless surveillance in the domestic sphere in the future.
As Threat Level pointed out last night, the ruling is likely to have little real consequence other than embarrassing Congress for failing to have the courage to stand up to defend the laws it itself passed. Instead of holding hearings and sending subpoenas, Congress is set to largely legalize dragnet surveillance being set up inside American telecom infrastructure and to make it very clear that they are serious about stopping warrantless wiretapping, they are adding exclamation points to the exclusivity provision.
They will also likely give retroactive amnesty to telecom companies that agreed to illegal and sweeping surveillance requests from the same government agencies that dole out fat secret contracts to the very same telecom companies.
So thanks to Congress’s pending meddling with the courts in capitulation to the President, Vaughn Walker’s ruling is the closest we will likely come to a judicial ruling on the limits of presidential power to spy on Americans.
Judge Vaughn Walker is no raging San Francisco liberal. He was appointed to the bench by President George H W Bush, and is known for his intellect and libertarian streak.
Walker also ruled that the government’s claims that the case would endanger national security did not overrule the provisions of law that let a spied-upon person sue the government for breaking the law.
But Walker dismissed the underlying case, which was based on a Top Secret document accidentally provided to American lawyers for a Muslim charity that the government was in the process of designating as a terrorist organization. The plaintiffs have been barred from using the document to prove they were spied on and thus can not prove standing. If they can find another way to prove they were spied on, they can refile the suit.
He’s the same judge who’s overseeing all the cases against the telecoms.
When the Senate votes Tuesday, they are voting to keep Judge Walker from examining whether
