Originally posted by 4sg:If Obama administration cannot close down the Guantanamo Bay Detention camp, it would be a real embarassment.
And now they are saying......
Detention camp at Guantánamo Bay won't close, but it won't be the same.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/13/america/scotus.php
For Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp to close, Obama needs the co-operation of the various countries whose citizens have volunteered to join Osama bin Ladin and his Al Qaeda to help the Talibans to subjugate Afghanistan.
Unfortunately, none of the various countries are prepared to receive their citizens who were captured as "non-military combatants".
With more then 200 over foreign citizens captured as "non-military combatants" during the sweep of the Talibans and Al Qaeda, where do you suggest that these captured foreign citizens be "housed" ?
They are not US citizens arrested as civil criminals and subjected to US Civil Laws - to be housed in civilian prisons for hardcore US criminals, and neither does the US Civil Laws applicable to those fighting as "non-military combatants".
This "state of limbo" is a result of the actions taken by Bush in response to the unprovoked attack by Osama bin Laden - on 9/11 - that saw more then 5000 civilian deaths from various nations - as a result of the destruction of the New York World Trade Center Twin Towers.
For Obama to succeed in closing down Guantanamo Bay Detention Center, the governments from other nations should accept the return of these detainees - and should not treat them any worst than what these detainees had experienced in the hands of the US Guards.
This is also a major concern for Obama's Government, as well as the US Congress who believed that some of the other Countries have prison systems that are known for prisoner abuses.
Originally posted by freedomclub:Obama's program of warby James Coganhttp://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=12089
Within days of taking power, the Obama administration has made clear that it will escalate the war to subjugate the Afghan people, intensify US military strikes on targets inside Pakistan and continue the occupation of Iraq indefinitely. What is being prepared is a brutal escalation of US military violence in Afghanistan and a widening of the conflagration in the region.
Obama left a two-hour meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff yesterday pledging to ensure that the military received the "resources and the support" to wage the wars being conducted by the United States. He told journalists he would soon be announcing "some difficult decisions that we're going to have to make surrounding Iraq and Afghanistan."
The essence of those decisions was indicated on Tuesday in the testimony of Defense Secretary Robert Gates before the Senate and House armed services committees. Obama's appointment of Gates marked the new president's unambiguous repudiation of the campaign rhetoric that appealed to broad antiwar sentiment among the American people. Gates served the Bush administration in the same post for the past two years and directed the escalation of the Iraq war from early 2007 to early 2008.
Gates told the senators: "There is little doubt that our greatest military challenge right now is Afghanistan. As you know, the United States has focused more on Central Asia in recent months. President Obama has made it clear that the Afghanistan theatre should be our top overseas military priority." The war in Afghanistan, he added, would be "long and difficult." The short-term time frame he placed on the conflict was "five years"?at least until 2014. He said an increase in US casualties was "likely" as operations are stepped-up against the anti-occupation insurgency being waged by loyalists of the former Taliban regime and other Afghan Islamist movements.
Gates stressed that as the new administration escalates military action in Central Asia, it has no intention of withdrawing from Iraq. Warning that resistance could erupt again against US forces in Iraq, he said "there may be hard days ahead for our troops." Even if units designated as "combat" are pulled out roughly according to the 16-month schedule promised by Obama during the election, Gates emphasized that a sizeable force would remain and "we should still expect to be involved in Iraq on some level for many years to come."
He told the Senate committee that Obama will send 30,000 additional American troops to Afghanistan as soon as possible. The first of the four combat brigades requested last year by General David McKiernan, the commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, has already taken up positions in areas to the east of the Afghan capital, Kabul. The 3,500 troops, from the 10th Mountain Division, have begun operations in the provinces of Wardak and Logar.
Analysts are predicting that Obama will order the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade to deploy to Afghanistan by mid-spring. Another Marine brigade will follow by mid-summer. The final additional brigade will arrive before the end of the year.
The intensified fighting will not be confined to Afghanistan. The predominantly ethnic Pashtun Afghan insurgents have safe havens and derive support among the Pashtun population of Pakistan's Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (FATA). As a result, the US and NATO forces have been unable to prevent the Afghan resistance from launching daily attacks across entire swathes of southern Afghanistan and replenishing both its ranks and weapons. Large-scale US military strikes on the FATA and even more deeply into Pakistan are the logical outcome of Obama's determination to place Afghanistan under US control. It was "impossible," Gates declared, "to disaggregate Afghanistan and Pakistan, given the porous border between them." He left no doubt that the US military would continue to conduct air strikes inside Pakistan, regardless of the opposition of the Pakistani government and Pakistani people, on the pretext that the targets were linked to Al Qaeda.
The primary motive for the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan was not to fight terrorism, but to create a base for the assertion of US influence over the resource-rich former Soviet republics in Central Asia. During last year's presidential election, Obama served as the mouthpiece for factions of the American establishment that had concluded the preoccupation with Iraq had resulted in Central Asia coming too much under the political and economic sway of Russia and China.
The re-emphasis on Afghanistan is intended to reverse this trend. Under the guise of securing supply routes for the increased US military force, intense diplomacy is taking place to establish access rights and military bases in Central Asian states such as Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Currently, the bulk of US and NATO supplies to Afghanistan move through border passes in the FATA, where they are coming under increasing attack by insurgents. Following a NATO summit on Monday, the Russian government announced that it is prepared to allow its territory and air space to be used to transport US and NATO supplies into Afghanistan.
Gates's testimony also indicated a shift in the relations between the US and the puppet government it has installed in Kabul under President Hamid Karzai. Along with fighting "terrorism," the Bush administration justified the occupation of Afghanistan with constant references to bringing "democracy," "development" and "human rights" to the Afghan people.
Gates dismissed such claims on Obama's behalf, telling senators: "If we set ourselves the objective of establishing some sort of a Central Asia Valhalla over there, we will lose... because nobody in the world has that much time, patience or money, to be honest...."
A brutal real politik will define the Obama administration's policy in Afghanistan. Karzai's government is frequently derided in US foreign policy circles for its endemic corruption and its lack of popular support among the Afghan people. A more important reason for flagging US enthusiasm for its puppet Karzai is the latter's public criticisms of US air strikes that target and kill Afghan civilians. The Obama administration has every intention of escalating the bloodshed and will brook no interference from its client regime.
The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Obama may support a campaign to remove Karzai in the presidential election scheduled to be held in the country later this year. The alternative to attempts to create a strong central government is the Iraq "surge" model. The commander of US forces in Iraq, General David Petraeus?who now heads the US Central Command?authorized his officers in particular parts of Iraq to bribe insurgent leaders to change sides, in exchange for both money and a degree of local power.
In a similar fashion, sources close to the Obama administration told the Times that it "would work with provincial leaders as an alternative to the central government, and that it would leave economic development and nation-building to European allies, so that American forces could concentrate on the fight against insurgents."
The result of this policy could be greater tensions between the US and the European powers. During his testimony, Gates demanded that NATO member-states "step up to the plate" and provide more forces and resources for the war in Afghanistan.
Even with 30,000 extra American troops, the occupation force will still be severely under-manned. In the midst of the ongoing occupation of Iraq and an economic meltdown, however, Gates told the Senate that he was "skeptical" the US military could contribute "additional American force levels beyond what General McKiernan has already asked for."
Under Bush, NATO states, particularly Germany, France, Italy and Turkey, repeatedly rejected US requests that they dramatically increase their involvement in the Afghan conflict. They must now decide how to respond to the Obama White House.
A British Broadcasting Corporation correspondent commented on Tuesday: "If NATO allies falter now, the long-term implications in terms of separating the United States from Europe could be severe... The issue is emerging as a potential troubling one at the 60th anniversary summit [of NATO] to be held in early April."
Millions of Americans were channelled into voting for Obama and the Democratic Party by the illusion that they would implement a decisive shift away from the militarism and neo-colonial interventions that marked the Bush years. Instead, they face an administration that is just as determined as Bush's to use brute military force to secure the economic and strategic interests of American imperialism. Countless thousands of Afghan and Pakistani lives, and those of hundreds if not thousands more American troops, are to be sacrificed in the process.
This reality underscores not only the debased character of "democracy" in the United States, but the necessity for a break with the two parties of US imperialism and a fundamental political reorientation of the working class toward a socialist and internationalist program.
Your paranoid distortions and undiscerning propagation of false news will only abuse the intelligence of other readers who willingly support the cause of those subjugated peoples of Afghanistan.
"... the Obama administration has made clear that it will escalate the war to subjugate the Afghan people..."
Will the Obama administration escalate the war to subjugate the people of Afghanistan, or did he declared that he will escalate the war to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, and to destroy Al Qaeda as the source of terrrorism ?
Have you allowed yourself to be manipulated by the false propaganda, or are you simply undiscerning with what is printed and merely resort to the sensational loud statements to gain attention ?
Only eight years have passed, and already it memory has faded from the initial after shock and indignation of seeing the bastion of the civilised world being attacked - with more then 5000 civilians of different nationalities killed by the brazen and wanton attacks on the Twin Towers using civilian airliners as weapons of mass destruction.
Did Bush or Cheney schemed with Osama Bin Laden in the attack on the New York City WTC - so as to give each of them the opportunity to execute their private agendas ?
Did Bush and Cheney have that intelligence and foresight to reach that far in their strategic outlook to have US embedded in Central Asia as a dominant power ?
With the kind of strategic intelligence that both have displayed in their conduct of the Iraq War, and the bungled military strategy to wipe out Saddam Hussein without any Post-War strategy or even a withdrawal strategy - can Bush and Cheney possess that gift of long term strategic thinking that they have been credited with ?
It is amazing how quickly significant events fade with time, and new speculative twists come into play to take advantage of past events to embrazen new agendas - while the uninformed and the dull minded willingly accept these new explanations.
Originally posted by Atobe:
Your paranoid distortions and undiscerning propagation of false news will only abuse the intelligence of other readers who willingly support the cause of those subjugated peoples of Afghanistan.
"... the Obama administration has made clear that it will escalate the war to subjugate the Afghan people..."
Will the Obama administration escalate the war to subjugate the people of Afghanistan, or did he declared that he will escalate the war to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, and to destroy Al Qaeda as the source of terrrorism ?
Have you allowed yourself to be manipulated by the false propaganda, or are you simply undiscerning with what is printed and merely resort to the sensational loud statements to gain attention ?
Only eight years have passed, and already it memory has faded from the initial after shock and indignation of seeing the bastion of the civilised world being attacked - with more then 5000 civilians of different nationalities killed by the brazen and wanton attacks on the Twin Towers using civilian airliners as weapons of mass destruction.
Did Bush or Cheney schemed with Osama Bin Laden in the attack on the New York City WTC - so as to give each of them the opportunity to execute their private agendas ?
Did Bush and Cheney have that intelligence and foresight to reach that far in their strategic outlook to have US embedded in Central Asia as a dominant power ?
With the kind of strategic intelligence that both have displayed in their conduct of the Iraq War, and the bungled military strategy to wipe out Saddam Hussein without any Post-War strategy or even a withdrawal strategy - can Bush and Cheney possess that gift of long term strategic thinking that they have been credited with ?
It is amazing how quickly significant events fade with time, and new speculative twists come into play to take advantage of past events to embrazen new agendas - while the uninformed and the dull minded willingly accept these new explanations.
Is 8 years so long a time that people actually believe the lie that the Afghan invasion was a response to 9/11? If that was the case, why were the Afghan war plans already prepared even before 9/11 and US troops were already massing, ready to invade Afghanistan?
Bush may not SEEM to have the intelligence to think that far ahead, but Cheney's PNAC gang already outlined the American Century of domination over Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and Lebanon years before 9/11 in order to remodel the Middle-East. And guess what it needed? A "catalysing" event like a "new Pearl Habour", just 1 year before 9/11.
Originally posted by Arapahoe:
When the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, poppy production was zeroWhich part of the info did you not understand. The poppy production was what fuel the Taliban economy....export thru Pakistan.
Oh I understand the information all right. Its just that you are prevented from doing the same by engineered mass opinions. Note the below article is from July 2001, 2 months before 9/11, and two years after the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan.
Originally posted by freedomclub:Is 8 years so long a time that people actually believe the lie that the Afghan invasion was a response to 9/11? If that was the case, why were the Afghan war plans already prepared even before 9/11 and US troops were already massing, ready to invade Afghanistan?
Bush may not SEEM to have the intelligence to think that far ahead, but Cheney's PNAC gang already outlined the American Century of domination over Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and Lebanon years before 9/11 in order to remodel the Middle-East. And guess what it needed? A "catalysing" event like a "new Pearl Habour", just 1 year before 9/11.
Let's assume that this whole allegation by Niaz Naik was true.
Then, Osama was dumb to have made a preemptive strike on 9/11, nullifying everything that Niaz had asserted.
The US had a valid reason to invade Afghanistan because Mullah Omar had refused to hand over Osama Bin Laden after the 9/11 attacks.
Originally posted by googoomuck:Let's assume that this whole allegation by Niaz Naik was true.
Then, Osama was dumb to have made a preemptive strike on 9/11, nullifying everything that Niaz had asserted.
The US had a valid reason to invade Afghanistan because Mullah Omar had refused to hand over Osama Bin Laden after the 9/11 attacks.
Thats assuming that Osama was behind the 9/11 attacks, which has already been shown to be full of holes large enough to crash a Boeing 757 through it, unlike the hole in the Pentagon.
Maybe you should go look at the failed oil pipeline talks between the US and the Taliban in early-mid 2001 before accepting the official story of 9/11 and the beginning of the phoney war of terror.
Originally posted by freedomclub:Thats assuming that Osama was behind the 9/11 attacks, which has already been shown to be full of holes large enough to crash a Boeing 757 through it, unlike the hole in the Pentagon.
Maybe you should go look at the failed oil pipeline talks between the US and the Taliban in early-mid 2001 before accepting the official story of 9/11 and the beginning of the phoney war of terror.
Osama behind the attacks was a confirmation, not an assumption.
Osama has had links with Ramzi Binalshibh, Mohammed Atta, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
Wait. I know you are going to say that Al Jazeera is not a credible MSM. Am I right?
Originally posted by googoomuck:Osama behind the attacks was a confirmation, not an assumption.
Osama has had links with Ramzi Binalshibh, Mohammed Atta, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
Wait. I know you are going to say that Al Jazeera is not a credible MSM. Am I right?
Yeah, and why did the the General Ahmed of Pakistan's ISI ordered $100,000 to be wired to Atta on September 10 and then have lunch the nexy day in D.C?
Aren't you forgetting the cozy relationship between the CIA and the ISI since the 1980s? Even today, the ISI agrees to make noise whenever the CIA bombs Pakistan but tacitly agrees to allow it to continue.
Nope, Osama's role is not even an assumption, but a false pretext to launch this imperialistic War of Terror.
The Truth behind 9/11: Who Is Osama Bin Laden?- http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20060910&articleId=3198
Imperialism You Can Believe In
http://www.infowars.com/defense-department-announces-civilian-expeditionary-workforce/
The Defense Department has established a "civilian expeditionary workforce" that will see American civilians trained and equipped to deploy overseas in support of worldwide military missions.
The move is seen by some as an initial step towards fulfilling president Obama’s promise to form a civilian national security force as powerful as the U.S. military.
The intent of the program “is to maximize the use of the civilian workforce to allow military personnel to be fully utilized for operational requirements,” according to a Defense Department report.
The program was officially implemented one week ago, on the 23rd January, when Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England signed Defense Department Directive 1404.10 (PDF), which provides a summation of the duties the workforce will undertake.
The directive, which is effective immediately, states that civilian employees of the DoD will be asked to sign agreements stating that they will deploy in support of military missions for up to two years if needed.
Workforce members, who are divided into different designations under the directive, will serve overseas in support of humanitarian, reconstruction and, if necessary, combat-support missions.
"If the employee does not wish to deploy, every effort will be made to reassign the employee to a nondeploying position." the DoD report states.
While the directive suggests that the DoD will at first seek volunteers to serve in the civilian workforce, section 4, subsection (e) paragraph (2) states:
Management retains the authority to direct and assign civilian employees, either voluntarily, involuntarily, or on an unexpected basis to accomplish the DoD mission.
In addition, the directive states that all workforce members will be subject to physical and psychological testing, both before and after deployment.
The directive refers several times to the civilian workforce as a component of the "Total Force", which it describes as "The organizations, units, and individuals that compromise the DoD resources for implementing the National Security Strategy." This "Total Force" includes active, reserve and retired military personnel in addition to DoD civilian employees.
Back in July 2008, Barack Obama, then the presidential front runner, called for a "civilian national security force" as powerful as the U.S. military.
"We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded," Obama told a Colorado Springs audience.
The comments that were ignored by the vast majority of the corporate media but were found to be troubling by some independent journalists who compared the idea to the formation of the Nazi Hitler Youth.
Fears of "youth brigades" or civilian stasi style units increased following Obama’s appointment of Rahm Emanuel to chief-of staff.
In his book, "The Plan: Big Ideas for America," Emanuel writes: "It’s time for a real Patriot Act that brings out the patriot in all of us. We propose universal civilian service for every young American. Under this plan, all Americans between the ages of 18 and 25 will be asked to serve their country by going through three months of basic training, civil defense preparation and community service."
The book also notes, "Some Republicans will squeal about individual freedom, ruling out any likelihood that they would let people opt out of universal citizen service."
Emanuel is also an enthusiastic supporter of the United States Public Service Academy Act, a lobbying group founded in 2006 in order to promote the foundation of an American public service academy modeled on the military academies - a youth corps whose students would be trained in "civilian internship in the armed forces".
Furthermore, in a rediscovered 2006 audio clip of an interview with Ben Smith of the New York Daily News, Emanuel outlined the agenda for compulsory military-style training, essentially a domestic draft, aimed at preparing Americans for a chemical or biological terrorist attack.
When controversy arose over the program last November, the use of the word "required" to describe the program was removed from Obama’s change.gov website and replaced with "community service" type terminology.
Though the civilian expeditionary workforce program is restricted to DoD employees, similar programs have already been established for public sector workers.
One such program has seen hundreds of police, firefighters, paramedics and utility workers recently trained and dispatched as "Terrorism Liaison Officers" in Colorado, Arizona and California to watch for "suspicious activity" which is later fed into a secret government database.
Originally posted by freedomclub:Yeah, and why did the the General Ahmed of Pakistan's ISI ordered $100,000 to be wired to Atta on September 10 and then have lunch the nexy day in D.C?
Aren't you forgetting the cozy relationship between the CIA and the ISI since the 1980s? Even today, the ISI agrees to make noise whenever the CIA bombs Pakistan but tacitly agrees to allow it to continue.
Nope, Osama's role is not even an assumption, but a false pretext to launch this imperialistic War of Terror.
The Truth behind 9/11: Who Is Osama Bin Laden?- http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20060910&articleId=3198
Al Jazeera is funded by an Arab Shiekh. Your posted articles are all full of conspiracy theories. You want to ignore the evidence, that's your choice.
I did not help fund Al Jazeera to broadcast news or conspiracy theories that I like to hear or read.
Originally posted by googoomuck:Al Jazeera is funded by an Arab Shiekh. Your posted articles are all full of conspiracy theories. You want to ignore the evidence, that's your choice.
I did not help fund Al Jazeera to broadcast news or conspiracy theories that I like to hear or read.
What issues that I posted is a "conspiracy theory"?
The way people talk I wonder whether there's a list of topics that no one is allowed to think about and instead just shut down whenever the term "conspiracy theory" is used.
Originally posted by freedomclub:Is 8 years so long a time that people actually believe the lie that the Afghan invasion was a response to 9/11? If that was the case, why were the Afghan war plans already prepared even before 9/11 and US troops were already massing, ready to invade Afghanistan?
Bush may not SEEM to have the intelligence to think that far ahead, but Cheney's PNAC gang already outlined the American Century of domination over Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and Lebanon years before 9/11 in order to remodel the Middle-East. And guess what it needed? A "catalysing" event like a "new Pearl Habour", just 1 year before 9/11.
Was the US Forces massing before the 9/11 attack ?
Which country was hosting the US Forces in preparation for the attack ?
In the end, the Talibans and Al Qaeda was kicked out of Afghanistan with only less then 300 Special Forces working in collaboration with the Afghans nationalist insurgents fighting the Talebans into a deadlock for so many years.
Did the USA need an excuse - such as the 9/11 destruction of the WTC in New York City in 2001 - to invade Afghanistan led by the Talibans hosting Al Qaeda ?
Or was this attack the "last straw that broke the camel's back" ?
In a published article titled ‘How Clinton Let Al-Qaeda Go’ – Richard Shultz Jr. 19 Jan 2004. - it confirmed the sequence of events that led to the attack on Afghanistan.
From various sources, are you aware that prior to this 9/11 attack on the World Trade Centre in 2001, that saw its complete destruction - ‘Al Qaeda had attacked USA on numerous occassions before 9/11’ ?
1993 World Trade Center bombed by car bomb - ‘Al Qaeda mastermind in 1993 attack on WTC arrested in Rawalpindi, Pakistan’ in March 2003, subsequently confirmed to be the hand that murdered Reporter Daniel Pearl; also confirmed as the mastermind of a failed plot in 2002 to bomb the US Bank Tower in Los Angeles, the successful Bali nightclub bombings, and the failed bombings of American Airlines Flight 063., and the Millenium Plot.
1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia
1998 US Embassy bombed in Kenya
2000 USS Cole bombed in Yemen
Do you expect the USA - or any other government - to sit quietly and not make any plans to attack Afghanistan which was harboring Osama Bin Laden and his Al Qaeda ?
If you believe that Cheney had such an ambitious plan, can you also accept LKY's plans to develop Malaysia into his dream fiefdom ?
Unfortunately, with governments that are exposed to the politics and democratic processes - such personal ambitions can hardly see fulfillment.
If Cheney - in the US poltical environment - had the powers of LKY in Singapore, he may yet succeed in realising his ambitions of a global reach.
You are a joke in perpetuating the propaganda in support of radical Islam, and do a disservice to the plights of the ordinary people in the Middle-east - who continue to suffer under the archaic laws and corruption of oil monies that perpetuate the greasy hands of those in power.
In Pakistan, Mr. Arlacchi said, the government, working with the United Nations, has completed one of its most successful eradication programs over the last two decades. ''Production is down to almost zero in the last few years,'' he said.
of all the references you actually pick Pakistan.......u make me laugh....these were the output before Soviet Invasion.........For years Tribes along Pakistan benefited from brokerage of drug trades. these are their source of income.
Foreign Area Studies
The American University
Edited by Richard F. Nyrop and Donald M. Seekins
Research completed
January 1986
All sorts of Western consumer goods were illegally brought into Afghanistan from Pakistan, and they kept the bazaars of Kabul well supplied. The most important item smuggled out of Afghanistan into Pakistan was opium. The importance of the Afghan opium crop increased in the 1970s. Before the war the Afghan opium was thought to have been grown in half the country's provinces, and with prices ranging up to US$1 00 per kilogram, it paid far better than any other cash crop. Production before the outbreak of the war was estimated at about 250 tons annually. Most opium cultivation was in the Pushtun areas of eastern Afghanistan, in Badakhshan, Nangarhar, and Paktia provinces. Every spring, poppy fields bloomed in profusion throughout the region, destined for markets in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. Drug trafficking was thought to be worth between US$20 and US$100 million annually before the war. The other important items smuggled into Pakistan were lapis lazuli and lumber. Livestock was sold at a much higher price in Iran than in Afghanistan, and animals, therefore, constituted a major item smuggled into Iran, as was opium.
Heroin from Afghanistan provided the Taliban with $8 billion dollars in 1999, according to
Rachel Ehrenfeld, in her book, Funding Evil; How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop It.
She writes, “The Taliban government, together with al-Qaeda, had taxed the poppy growers and
producers of opium base and heroin while al-Qaeda provided the growers with protection from
warlords and other bandits who would otherwise have stolen their crop.”
You Got Con......by Mohammed Omar......500 metric tons stashed in the caves......
In fact, according to Ehrenfeld, the Taliban and al-Qaeda stashed 500 metric tons of
heroin in caves in the Afghan mountains. During 2000, although poppy cultivation had been
banned, there was only a ten percent decrease in opium production
Isn't better to discuss what these paradise seekers have contributed to mankind, besides bombing?
Originally posted by Atobe:
Was the US Forces massing before the 9/11 attack ?
Which country was hosting the US Forces in preparation for the attack ?
In the end, the Talibans and Al Qaeda was kicked out of Afghanistan with only less then 300 Special Forces working in collaboration with the Afghans nationalist insurgents fighting the Talebans into a deadlock for so many years.
Did the USA need an excuse - such as the 9/11 destruction of the WTC in New York City in 2001 - to invade Afghanistan led by the Talibans hosting Al Qaeda ?Or was this attack the "last straw that broke the camel's back" ?
In a published article titled ‘How Clinton Let Al-Qaeda Go’ – Richard Shultz Jr. 19 Jan 2004. - it confirmed the sequence of events that led to the attack on Afghanistan.
From various sources, are you aware that prior to this 9/11 attack on the World Trade Centre in 2001, that saw its complete destruction - ‘Al Qaeda had attacked USA on numerous occassions before 9/11’ ?
1993 World Trade Center bombed by car bomb - ‘Al Qaeda mastermind in 1993 attack on WTC arrested in Rawalpindi, Pakistan’ in March 2003, subsequently confirmed to be the hand that murdered Reporter Daniel Pearl; also confirmed as the mastermind of a failed plot in 2002 to bomb the US Bank Tower in Los Angeles, the successful Bali nightclub bombings, and the failed bombings of American Airlines Flight 063., and the Millenium Plot.
1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia
1998 US Embassy bombed in Kenya
2000 USS Cole bombed in Yemen
Do you expect the USA - or any other government - to sit quietly and not make any plans to attack Afghanistan which was harboring Osama Bin Laden and his Al Qaeda ?
If you believe that Cheney had such an ambitious plan, can you also accept LKY's plans to develop Malaysia into his dream fiefdom ?
Unfortunately, with governments that are exposed to the politics and democratic processes - such personal ambitions can hardly see fulfillment.
If Cheney - in the US poltical environment - had the powers of LKY in Singapore, he may yet succeed in realising his ambitions of a global reach.
You are a joke in perpetuating the propaganda in support of radical Islam, and do a disservice to the plights of the ordinary people in the Middle-east - who continue to suffer under the archaic laws and corruption of oil monies that perpetuate the greasy hands of those in power.
"Insider accounts published in the British, French and Indian media have revealed that US officials threatened war against Afghanistan during the summer of 2001. These reports include the prediction, made in July, that “if the military action went ahead, it would take place before the snows started falling in Afghanistan, by the middle of October at the latest.” The Bush administration began its bombing strikes on the hapless, poverty-stricken country October 7, and ground attacks by US Special Forces began October 19.
It is not an accident that these revelations have appeared overseas, rather than in the US. The ruling classes in these countries have their own economic and political interests to look after, which do not coincide, and in some cases directly clash, with the drive by the American ruling elite to seize control of oil-rich territory in Central Asia.
....
The pundits for the American television networks and major daily newspapers celebrate the rapid military defeat of the Taliban regime as an unexpected stroke of good fortune. They distract public attention from the conclusion that any serious observer would be compelled to draw from the events of the past two weeks: that the speedy victory of the US-backed forces reveals careful planning and preparation by the American military, which must have begun well before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
...
This is only one of countless lies emanating from the Pentagon and White House about the war against Afghanistan. The truth is that the US intervention was planned in detail and carefully prepared long before the terrorist attacks provided the pretext for setting it in motion. If history had skipped over September 11, and the events of that day had never happened, it is very likely that the United States would have gone to war in Afghanistan anyway, and on much the same schedule.
....
“Mr. Naik was told that Washington would launch its operation from bases in Tajikistan, where American advisers were already in place.
“He was told that Uzbekistan would also participate in the operation and that 17,000 Russian troops were on standby.
“Mr. Naik was told that if the military action went ahead it would take place before the snows started falling in Afghanistan, by the middle of October at the latest.”
Four days later, on September 22, the Guardian newspaper confirmed this account. The warnings to Afghanistan came out of a four-day meeting of senior US, Russian, Iranian and Pakistani officials at a hotel in Berlin in mid-July, the third in a series of back-channel conferences dubbed “brainstorming on Afghanistan.”
...
Further light on secret contacts between the Bush administration and the Taliban regime is shed by a book released November 15 in France, entitled Bin Laden, the Forbidden Truth, written by Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie. Brisard is a former French secret service agent, author of a previous report on bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network, and former director of strategy for the French corporation Vivendi, while Dasquie is an investigative journalist.
The two French authors write that the Bush administration was willing to accept the Taliban regime, despite the charges of sponsoring terrorism, if it cooperated with plans for the development of the oil resources of Central Asia.
Until August, they claim, the US government saw the Taliban “as a source of stability in Central Asia that would enable the construction of an oil pipeline across Central Asia.” It was only when the Taliban refused to accept US conditions that “this rationale of energy security changed into a military one.”
By way of corroboration, one should note the curious fact that neither the Clinton administration nor the Bush administration ever placed Afghanistan on the official State Department list of states charged with sponsoring terrorism, despite the acknowledged presence of Osama bin Laden as a guest of the Taliban regime. Such a designation would have made it impossible for an American oil or construction company to sign a deal with Kabul for a pipeline to the Central Asian oil and gas fields.
Talks between the Bush administration and the Taliban began in February 2001, shortly after Bush’s inauguration. A Taliban emissary arrived in Washington in March with presents for the new chief executive, including an expensive Afghan carpet. But the talks themselves were less than cordial. Brisard said, “At one moment during the negotiations, the US representatives told the Taliban, ‘either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs’.”
...
This account of the preparations for war against Afghanistan brings us to September 11 itself. The terrorist attack that destroyed the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon was an important link in the chain of causality that produced the US attack on Afghanistan. The US government had planned the war well in advance, but the shock of September 11 made it politically feasible, by stupefying public opinion at home and giving Washington essential leverage on reluctant allies abroad.
...
In the immediate aftermath of September 11, there were press reports—again, largely overseas—that US intelligence agencies had received specific warnings about large-scale terrorist attacks, including the use of hijacked airplanes. It is quite possible that a decision was made at the highest levels of the American state to allow such an attack to proceed, perhaps without imagining the actual scale of the damage, in order to provide the necessary spark for war in Afghanistan.
...
This is not to say that the American government deliberately planned every detail of the terrorist attacks or anticipated that nearly 5,000 people would be killed. But the least likely explanation of September 11 is the official one: that dozens of Islamic fundamentalists, many with known ties to Osama bin Laden, were able to carry out a wide-ranging conspiracy on three continents, targeting the most prominent symbols of American power, without any US intelligence agency having the slightest idea of what they were doing."
- US planned war in Afghanistan long before September 11
"We now know that a blueprint for the creation of a global Pax Americana was drawn up for Dick Cheney (now vice-president), Donald Rumsfeld (defence secretary), Paul Wolfowitz (Rumsfeld's deputy), Jeb Bush (George Bush's younger brother) and Lewis Libby (Cheney's chief of staff). The document, entitled Rebuilding America's Defences, was written in September 2000 by the neoconservative think tank, Project for the New American Century (PNAC).
The plan shows Bush's cabinet intended to take military control of the Gulf region whether or not Saddam Hussein was in power. It says "while the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein."
...
Fifteen of the 9/11 hijackers obtained their visas in Saudi Arabia. Michael Springman, the former head of the American visa bureau in Jeddah, has stated that since 1987 the CIA had been illicitly issuing visas to unqualified applicants from the Middle East and bringing them to the US for training in terrorism for the Afghan war in collaboration with Bin Laden (BBC, November 6 2001). It seems this operation continued after the Afghan war for other purposes. It is also reported that five of the hijackers received training at secure US military installations in the 1990s (Newsweek, September 15 2001).
...
The catalogue of evidence does, however, fall into place when set against the PNAC blueprint. From this it seems that the so-called "war on terrorism" is being used largely as bogus cover for achieving wider US strategic geopolitical objectives. Indeed Tony Blair himself hinted at this when he said to the Commons liaison committee: "To be truthful about it, there was no way we could have got the public consent to have suddenly launched a campaign on Afghanistan but for what happened on September 11" (Times, July 17 2002). Similarly Rumsfeld was so determined to obtain a rationale for an attack on Iraq that on 10 separate occasions he asked the CIA to find evidence linking Iraq to 9/11; the CIA repeatedly came back empty-handed (Time Magazine, May 13 2002).
In fact, 9/11 offered an extremely convenient pretext to put the PNAC plan into action. The evidence again is quite clear that plans for military action against Afghanistan and Iraq were in hand well before 9/11. A report prepared for the US government from the Baker Institute of Public Policy stated in April 2001 that "the US remains a prisoner of its energy dilemma. Iraq remains a destabilising influence to... the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East". Submitted to Vice-President Cheney's energy task group, the report recommended that because this was an unacceptable risk to the US, "military intervention" was necessary (Sunday Herald, October 6 2002).
...
The conclusion of all this analysis must surely be that the "global war on terrorism" has the hallmarks of a political myth propagated to pave the way for a wholly different agenda - the US goal of world hegemony, built around securing by force command over the oil supplies required to drive the whole project. Is collusion in this myth and junior participation in this project really a proper aspiration for British foreign policy? If there was ever need to justify a more objective British stance, driven by our own independent goals, this whole depressing saga surely provides all the evidence needed for a radical change of course."
- This war on terrorism is bogus
Add to that the close ties between the Bushes and Bin Laden, in fact Bush flew the Bin Laden family out of the US without even allowing the FBI to interview them and Bin Laden's CIA connection during the Afghan-Soviet war- even meeting up with the CIA in July 2001.
As for the 1993 WTC bombings, the NYT has already reported that Emad Salem, the ex-Egyptian intelligence officer who directed the bombers was an FBI informant who was supplied with explosives and instructions by the FBI itself.
Really, supporting radical Islam...that's a first.
Originally posted by Arapahoe:In Pakistan, Mr. Arlacchi said, the government, working with the United Nations, has completed one of its most successful eradication programs over the last two decades. ''Production is down to almost zero in the last few years,'' he said.
of all the references you actually pick Pakistan.......u make me laugh....these were the output before Soviet Invasion.........For years Tribes along Pakistan benefited from brokerage of drug trades. these are their source of income.
Foreign Area Studies
The American University
Edited by Richard F. Nyrop and Donald M. Seekins
Research completed
January 1986All sorts of Western consumer goods were illegally brought into Afghanistan from Pakistan, and they kept the bazaars of Kabul well supplied. The most important item smuggled out of Afghanistan into Pakistan was opium. The importance of the Afghan opium crop increased in the 1970s. Before the war the Afghan opium was thought to have been grown in half the country's provinces, and with prices ranging up to US$1 00 per kilogram, it paid far better than any other cash crop. Production before the outbreak of the war was estimated at about 250 tons annually. Most opium cultivation was in the Pushtun areas of eastern Afghanistan, in Badakhshan, Nangarhar, and Paktia provinces. Every spring, poppy fields bloomed in profusion throughout the region, destined for markets in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. Drug trafficking was thought to be worth between US$20 and US$100 million annually before the war. The other important items smuggled into Pakistan were lapis lazuli and lumber. Livestock was sold at a much higher price in Iran than in Afghanistan, and animals, therefore, constituted a major item smuggled into Iran, as was opium.
Heroin from Afghanistan provided the Taliban with $8 billion dollars in 1999, according to
Rachel Ehrenfeld, in her book, Funding Evil; How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop It.
She writes, “The Taliban government, together with al-Qaeda, had taxed the poppy growers and
producers of opium base and heroin while al-Qaeda provided the growers with protection from
warlords and other bandits who would otherwise have stolen their crop.”
You Got Con......by Mohammed Omar......500 metric tons stashed in the caves......
In fact, according to Ehrenfeld, the Taliban and al-Qaeda stashed 500 metric tons of
heroin in caves in the Afghan mountains. During 2000, although poppy cultivation had been
banned, there was only a ten percent decrease in opium production
You're refuting the article I posted, which was written in 2001 with evidence from 1986 and 2000?
Are you saying that the UN is lying about the Taliban curtailing opium production? The truth is that Afghanistan fell from the world's top opium producer after the Taliban took power, but when the US invaded, opium production recovered to supply 90% of world supply.
"Afghanistan saw a bumper opium crop of 4,600 metric tons in 1999[9], which was the height of the Taliban rule in Afghanistan. According to a Swiss security publication, 'SicherheitsForum' (April 2006, pp:56-57), this resulted in supply exceeding demand and a drop in the high-street price of heroin and morphine in the West, endangering the profitability of European drug smugglers. It has been said that European Smugglers demanded a reduction in supply to counter lower prices. [10]
Afghanistan briefly witnessed one of the world's most successful anti-drug campaigns when Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar declared that growing poppies is un-Islamic. Some historians say the Taliban allege cynically cut production to increase the values of their own stockpiles, although never verified, the effect in the fields was dramatic: a year's crop was almost entirely wiped out and production was down to zero.[11]
As a result of this July 2001 ban, opium poppy cultivation was reduced by 91% from the previous year's estimate of 82,172 hectares. The ban was so effective that Helmand Province, which had accounted for more than half of this area, recorded no poppy cultivation during the 2001 season.[12]
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_production_in_Afghanistan#Rise_of_the_Taliban_.281994-2001.29
If US tries to seize control of Central Asia because of oil, Russia would have intervened.
Russian influence has never left Central Asia. Russia has no interest in Afghanistan as long as the conflict don't spill into the region bordering the nations under its influence.
Putin must be very pleased that Russia need not have to neutralize the Taliban-Al-Queda menace since the US is doing the job. He can then focus on the tensions in Chechnya.
Originally posted by googoomuck:If US tries to seize control of Central Asia because of oil, Russia would have intervened.
Russian influence has never left Central Asia. Russia has no interest in Afghanistan as long as the conflict don't spill into the region bordering the nations under its influence.
Putin must be very pleased that Russia need not have to neutralize the Taliban-Al-Queda menace since the US is doing the job. He can then focus on the tensions in Chechnya.
Thats why there's a replay of the 19th Century Great Game on-going between the US and Russia right now. You think the MSM is going to fill the masses in?
Russia stops US on road to Afghanistan- http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KA27Df01.html
Originally posted by freedomclub:
"Insider accounts published in the British, French and Indian media have revealed that US officials threatened war against Afghanistan during the summer of 2001. These reports include the prediction, made in July, that “if the military action went ahead, it would take place before the snows started falling in Afghanistan, by the middle of October at the latest.” The Bush administration began its bombing strikes on the hapless, poverty-stricken country October 7, and ground attacks by US Special Forces began October 19.
It is not an accident that these revelations have appeared overseas, rather than in the US. The ruling classes in these countries have their own economic and political interests to look after, which do not coincide, and in some cases directly clash, with the drive by the American ruling elite to seize control of oil-rich territory in Central Asia.
Which insider account are you alluding to ?
How reliable is the insider account and where is their sources of information, when you claim - (further paragraphs down) - that even the Bush Administration is not aware of the going on within the Government ?
It will not be surprising if some smaller retaliatory attacks were already instituted for the brazen attacks that Osama Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda had made against US and the World Communities since 1993 - as listed in my last reply on Page 2 of this thread.
Should we be surprised at your deliberate distortion of events ?
The pundits for the American television networks and major daily newspapers celebrate the rapid military defeat of the Taliban regime as an unexpected stroke of good fortune. They distract public attention from the conclusion that any serious observer would be compelled to draw from the events of the past two weeks: that the speedy victory of the US-backed forces reveals careful planning and preparation by the American military, which must have begun well before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
...
This is only one of countless lies emanating from the Pentagon and White House about the war against Afghanistan. The truth is that the US intervention was planned in detail and carefully prepared long before the terrorist attacks provided the pretext for setting it in motion. If history had skipped over September 11, and the events of that day had never happened, it is very likely that the United States would have gone to war in Afghanistan anyway, and on much the same schedule.
The truth is that the US had been planning to attack Al-Qaeda's training centers inside Afghanistan as they have been attacking US installations across the globe since 1993, and had even attempted to bomb the World Trade Center as early as in 1993.
Yes, if the World Trade Center was not completely destroyed on that fateful day marked forever as 9/11 - the USA would have gone into attack mode if Al-Qaeda continue to hit with impunity at US facilities anywhere and everywhere on this globe.
How many lives have already been lost - both US and other nationalities - in the various attacks that I have listed in my previous reply on Page 2 of this thread ?
Do you think that the USA should sit idly by and absorb more of Al-Qaeda's attacks without planning any kind response ?
“Mr. Naik was told that Washington would launch its operation from bases in Tajikistan, where American advisers were already in place.
“He was told that Uzbekistan would also participate in the operation and that 17,000 Russian troops were on standby.
“Mr. Naik was told that if the military action went ahead it would take place before the snows started falling in Afghanistan, by the middle of October at the latest.”
Four days later, on September 22, the Guardian newspaper confirmed this account. The warnings to Afghanistan came out of a four-day meeting of senior US, Russian, Iranian and Pakistani officials at a hotel in Berlin in mid-July, the third in a series of back-channel conferences dubbed “brainstorming on Afghanistan.”
Do you know that Uzbekistan has 90 percent of its population being Muslims ?
Do you seriously believe that the political leadership will be in any position to have US forces on Uzbek soil without good reasons such as that provided by Al-Qaeda's actions of impunity at hitting US Military and Civilian targets ?
If any attack plans were to be made prior to 9/11 against the Taliban controlled Afghanistan, it would have been the on-going planning to respond to Al-Qaeda's attacks at US Military and Civilian targets around the globe.
Al-Qaeda's actions on 9/11 simply provided the urgent impetus to deal more seriously with Osama and his Al-Qaeda, which resulted in more re-evaluation made, detailed studies to determine the best strategy plans and methods to be employed.
The final analysis resulted in less than 300 plus Special Forces personnel entering Afghanistan to work closely with the various Nationalist Forces fighting the Talibans.
Further light on secret contacts between the Bush administration and the Taliban regime is shed by a book released November 15 in France, entitled Bin Laden, the Forbidden Truth, written by Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie. Brisard is a former French secret service agent, author of a previous report on bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network, and former director of strategy for the French corporation Vivendi, while Dasquie is an investigative journalist.
The two French authors write that the Bush administration was willing to accept the Taliban regime, despite the charges of sponsoring terrorism, if it cooperated with plans for the development of the oil resources of Central Asia.
Until August, they claim, the US government saw the Taliban “as a source of stability in Central Asia that would enable the construction of an oil pipeline across Central Asia.” It was only when the Taliban refused to accept US conditions that “this rationale of energy security changed into a military one.”
By way of corroboration, one should note the curious fact that neither the Clinton administration nor the Bush administration ever placed Afghanistan on the official State Department list of states charged with sponsoring terrorism, despite the acknowledged presence of Osama bin Laden as a guest of the Taliban regime. Such a designation would have made it impossible for an American oil or construction company to sign a deal with Kabul for a pipeline to the Central Asian oil and gas fields.
Talks between the Bush administration and the Taliban began in February 2001, shortly after Bush’s inauguration. A Taliban emissary arrived in Washington in March with presents for the new chief executive, including an expensive Afghan carpet. But the talks themselves were less than cordial. Brisard said, “At one moment during the negotiations, the US representatives told the Taliban, ‘either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs’.”
Should it be any surprise that neither the Bush nor Clinton administration placed the Talibans nor Osama bin Laden as a political entity that promoted terrorism before the 9/11 incident ?
If at all, the previous US Administration during Ronald Reagan's days had embraced and supported the Talebans and Osama bin Laden in the joint battle against the Soviet forces occupying Afghanistan.
From Reagan to Bush Jr - (it was one term for Bush Sr, and two terms for Clinton) - which amounted to a 12 year interlude that changed US support for Talebans against Soviet Occupation, to one of military threats to dismantle the Talebans and Al-Qaeda ?
Can you even hope to be in any independent position to think for yourself the reasons for this sea-change in US policies ?
By the standards displayed up until this page, it seems that you will prefer to use the information from the blogs posted by supporters of radical Islam.
This account of the preparations for war against Afghanistan brings us to September 11 itself. The terrorist attack that destroyed the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon was an important link in the chain of causality that produced the US attack on Afghanistan. The US government had planned the war well in advance, but the shock of September 11 made it politically feasible, by stupefying public opinion at home and giving Washington essential leverage on reluctant allies abroad.
The earlier plans to attack Afghanistan before 9/11 was due to the attacks made with such impunity by Al-Qaeda since the first car bombing attack inside the WTC in 1993, and the various Al-Qaeda's attacks at US Civilian and Military facilities and properties around the globe.
The shock of September 11, 2001 simply made a counter attack more than necessary, it was a clarion call to action for all the dastardly unprovoked attacks that culminate the ten years of consistent and persistent attacks at US interests across the globe.
Was public opinions stupefied by George Bush Jr public relation machinery, or was the brazen attack at the WTC on 9 /11 simply too stupefying that it even elicited condemnation from staunchly Islamic Governments that had previously refused to associate themselves closely to the USA ?
Malaysia and Indonesia condemned it; and so did Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Libya, Morroco, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan - and with the majority of Muslim reactions immediately after 9/11 destruction of WTC being respectfully subdued and went unreported by the main mass media.
It is so easy to distort events and opinions after a lapse of 8 years since 9/11, and new opinions can be reconstructed from the faded events that began since 1993.
What is your agenda in this effort to propagate these new opinions perpetuated by unknown persons ?
In the immediate aftermath of September 11, there were press reports—again, largely overseas—that US intelligence agencies had received specific warnings about large-scale terrorist attacks, including the use of hijacked airplanes. It is quite possible that a decision was made at the highest levels of the American state to allow such an attack to proceed, perhaps without imagining the actual scale of the damage, in order to provide the necessary spark for war in Afghanistan.
This is not to say that the American government deliberately planned every detail of the terrorist attacks or anticipated that nearly 5,000 people would be killed. But the least likely explanation of September 11 is the official one: that dozens of Islamic fundamentalists, many with known ties to Osama bin Laden, were able to carry out a wide-ranging conspiracy on three continents, targeting the most prominent symbols of American power, without any US intelligence agency having the slightest idea of what they were doing."
US Congressional Committee that was formed by prominent Congressmen from both political parties were tasked to investigate all angles and all levels of the different roles of government agencies that led to this sordid event.
The investigation had shown the lapses in the various intelligence agencies that had fought turf wars before and continued the relentless fight up to the date of the investigation. The various agencies had jealously guarded information that remained within their own domain and refused to share it beyond the perimeters of their building.
The US Congressional Committee had even discovered that within the FBI alone, field operatives' reports of suspicious activities was left unattended by their superiors at FBI HQ, with some of these reports being dismissed.
Conspiracy theories abound and if you can accept such conspiracy theories to be true, I wonder why no one give any credibility to the conspiracy theories of the monies that was supposed to have been lent to Indonesia when the late Indonesian President Suharto had faced a financial melt-down in 1997 and sought Singapore's help ?
In a tightly controlled environment such as Singapore, where information is kept in SECRET into perpetuity, such conspiracies will never see the light of day.
Can the same be said of events in the USA - when Government archives are open to the public when it reaches the statutory period of 30 years ?
Can conspiracy theories survive with information that is readily available ?
"We now know that a blueprint for the creation of a global Pax Americana was drawn up for Dick Cheney (now vice-president), Donald Rumsfeld (defence secretary), Paul Wolfowitz (Rumsfeld's deputy), Jeb Bush (George Bush's younger brother) and Lewis Libby (Cheney's chief of staff). The document, entitled Rebuilding America's Defences, was written in September 2000 by the neoconservative think tank, Project for the New American Century (PNAC).
The plan shows Bush's cabinet intended to take military control of the Gulf region whether or not Saddam Hussein was in power. It says "while the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein."
Jeb Bush (George Bush Jr's younger brother) barely retained his Governor's seat, while Donald Rumsfeld was forced out of office, Paul Wolfowitz had to climb down from his Defense position and could not even hold on to his chair at the World Bank, Lewis Libby was prosecuted for lying to the Grand Jury, leaving Dick Cheney and George Bush to hold on to the torn pages of the supposed "Pax Americana" - if such a book can even be dreamed up by the brains of these two cowboys with blood flow constricted by tight boots that were undersized for their feet.
So much for the "Pax Americana" speculation.
Fifteen of the 9/11 hijackers obtained their visas in Saudi Arabia. Michael Springman, the former head of the American visa bureau in Jeddah, has stated that since 1987 the CIA had been illicitly issuing visas to unqualified applicants from the Middle East and bringing them to the US for training in terrorism for the Afghan war in collaboration with Bin Laden (BBC, November 6 2001). It seems this operation continued after the Afghan war for other purposes. It is also reported that five of the hijackers received training at secure US military installations in the 1990s (Newsweek, September 15 2001).
This is not the first time that the CIA had made poor choices, and this is not a hallmark that is the preserve ground of the CIA, as the reputation of other National Spy Agencies have suffered as much in the hands of 'double-agents'.
The Russian Spy ring that infiltrated the upper crust of Cambridge University providing leadership talents and materials to the UK Government had remained undetected for decades, and had its origins during the early days of Stalin's reign - and was exposed in the late 1960s, after a period of over forty years.
Even to this day, there remain a Russian mole deep within the UK Intelligence Service that is thought to have existed and remain unknown; and time will simply see the mole being retired and perhaps any successor will be more easily detected.
Is this anything new in the World of Spy vs Spy ?
The catalogue of evidence does, however, fall into place when set against the PNAC blueprint. From this it seems that the so-called "war on terrorism" is being used largely as bogus cover for achieving wider US strategic geopolitical objectives. Indeed Tony Blair himself hinted at this when he said to the Commons liaison committee: "To be truthful about it, there was no way we could have got the public consent to have suddenly launched a campaign on Afghanistan but for what happened on September 11" (Times, July 17 2002). Similarly Rumsfeld was so determined to obtain a rationale for an attack on Iraq that on 10 separate occasions he asked the CIA to find evidence linking Iraq to 9/11; the CIA repeatedly came back empty-handed (Time Magazine, May 13 2002).
In fact, 9/11 offered an extremely convenient pretext to put the PNAC plan into action. The evidence again is quite clear that plans for military action against Afghanistan and Iraq were in hand well before 9/11. A report prepared for the US government from the Baker Institute of Public Policy stated in April 2001 that "the US remains a prisoner of its energy dilemma. Iraq remains a destabilising influence to... the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East". Submitted to Vice-President Cheney's energy task group, the report recommended that because this was an unacceptable risk to the US, "military intervention" was necessary (Sunday Herald, October 6 2002).
Was there any denial on the part of the US Government that the new arrangements with the Central Asian Governments that splintered from the old Soviet Russian Bloc had opened new partnership opportunities to face new political challenges in the 21st Century ?
The war to capture Osama bin Laden and destroy Al-Qaeda had unexpectedly open new doors to new partnership, to face the potential threats from a rising China that is confident with her new found economic strengths, and to face the threats of a belligerent Iran.
Unfortunately, the new partnership that the USA had found with the Central Asian governments were not set in concrete, as most of the pacts have worn out the welcome and enthusiasm first given by these Central Asian host nations to USA.
Where is the "Pac Americana" - when the key proponents are no longer in power, with George Bush Jr unable even to get any interest in his autobiography, nor obtain any interests in speaking tours as Bill Clinton had ?
Where is the "Pac Americana" - when the USA is in debt up to its hair, and with Obama planning to spend its way out of the economic morass ?
You would have sounded more credible if you were more discerning with your efforts.
The conclusion of all this analysis must surely be that the "global war on terrorism" has the hallmarks of a political myth propagated to pave the way for a wholly different agenda - the US goal of world hegemony, built around securing by force command over the oil supplies required to drive the whole project. Is collusion in this myth and junior participation in this project really a proper aspiration for British foreign policy? If there was ever need to justify a more objective British stance, driven by our own independent goals, this whole depressing saga surely provides all the evidence needed for a radical change of course."
Unfortunately, the bogus is in the myth that you have created with your undiscerning propagating of a shrill and alarmist message that distorts conventions and reality.
The line taken is so obvious that only the blind and the deaf cannot discern what you have preferred to perpetuate the distorted views by subverting the truth.
Add to that the close ties between the Bushes and Bin Laden, in fact Bush flew the Bin Laden family out of the US without even allowing the FBI to interview them and Bin Laden's CIA connection during the Afghan-Soviet war- even meeting up with the CIA in July 2001.
As for the 1993 WTC bombings, the NYT has already reported that Emad Salem, the ex-Egyptian intelligence officer who directed the bombers was an FBI informant who was supplied with explosives and instructions by the FBI itself.
Really, supporting radical Islam...that's a first.
The Bin Laden Family had never had any close ties with the black sheep of the family - Osama.
Shall we condemn your family for the stupidity in you ?
Spy vs Spy - has been a contest of nations that have set out to destroy the other by all means and methods to lull the other side to sleep, while surreptiously making covert plans to destroy the host.
The end game has yet to be seen.
Do you want to place your bets as to which side will win ?
Originally posted by Atobe:Which insider account are you alluding to ?
How reliable is the insider account and where is their sources of information, when you claim - (further paragraphs down) - that even the Bush Administration is not aware of the going on within the Government ?
It will not be surprising if some smaller retaliatory attacks were already instituted for the brazen attacks that Osama Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda had made against US and the World Communities since 1993 - as listed in my last reply on Page 2 of this thread.
Should we be surprised at your deliberate distortion of events ?
The truth is that the US had been planning to attack Al-Qaeda's training centers inside Afghanistan as they have been attacking US installations across the globe since 1993, and had even attempted to bomb the World Trade Center as early as in 1993.
Yes, if the World Trade Center was not completely destroyed on that fateful day marked forever as 9/11 - the USA would have gone into attack mode if Al-Qaeda continue to hit with impunity at US facilities anywhere and everywhere on this globe.
How many lives have already been lost - both US and other nationalities - in the various attacks that I have listed in my previous reply on Page 2 of this thread ?
Do you think that the USA should sit idly by and absorb more of Al-Qaeda's attacks without planning any kind response ?
Do you know that Uzbekistan has 90 percent of its population being Muslims ?
Do you seriously believe that the political leadership will be in any position to have US forces on Uzbek soil without good reasons such as that provided by Al-Qaeda's actions of impunity at hitting US Military and Civilian targets ?
If any attack plans were to be made prior to 9/11 against the Taliban controlled Afghanistan, it would have been the on-going planning to respond to Al-Qaeda's attacks at US Military and Civilian targets around the globe.
Al-Qaeda's actions on 9/11 simply provided the urgent impetus to deal more seriously with Osama and his Al-Qaeda, which resulted in more re-evaluation made, detailed studies to determine the best strategy plans and methods to be employed.
The final analysis resulted in less than 300 plus Special Forces personnel entering Afghanistan to work closely with the various Nationalist Forces fighting the Talibans.
Should it be any surprise that neither the Bush nor Clinton administration placed the Talibans nor Osama bin Laden as a political entity that promoted terrorism before the 9/11 incident ?
If at all, the previous US Administration during Ronald Reagan's days had embraced and supported the Talebans and Osama bin Laden in the joint battle against the Soviet forces occupying Afghanistan.
From Reagan to Bush Jr - (it was one term for Bush Sr, and two terms for Clinton) - which amounted to a 12 year interlude that changed US support for Talebans against Soviet Occupation, to one of military threats to dismantle the Talebans and Al-Qaeda ?
Can you even hope to be in any independent position to think for yourself the reasons for this sea-change in US policies ?
By the standards displayed up until this page, it seems that you will prefer to use the information from the blogs posted by supporters of radical Islam.
The earlier plans to attack Afghanistan before 9/11 was due to the attacks made with such impunity by Al-Qaeda since the first car bombing attack inside the WTC in 1993, and the various Al-Qaeda's attacks at US Civilian and Military facilities and properties around the globe.
The shock of September 11, 2001 simply made a counter attack more than necessary, it was a clarion call to action for all the dastardly unprovoked attacks that culminate the ten years of consistent and persistent attacks at US interests across the globe.
Was public opinions stupefied by George Bush Jr public relation machinery, or was the brazen attack at the WTC on 9 /11 simply too stupefying that it even elicited condemnation from staunchly Islamic Governments that had previously refused to associate themselves closely to the USA ?
Malaysia and Indonesia condemned it; and so did Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Libya, Morroco, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan - and with the majority of Muslim reactions immediately after 9/11 destruction of WTC being respectfully subdued and went unreported by the main mass media.
It is so easy to distort events and opinions after a lapse of 8 years since 9/11, and new opinions can be reconstructed from the faded events that began since 1993.
What is your agenda in this effort to propagate these new opinions perpetuated by unknown persons ?
US Congressional Committee that was formed by prominent Congressmen from both political parties were tasked to investigate all angles and all levels of the different roles of government agencies that led to this sordid event.
The investigation had shown the lapses in the various intelligence agencies that had fought turf wars before and continued the relentless fight up to the date of the investigation. The various agencies had jealously guarded information that remained within their own domain and refused to share it beyond the perimeters of their building.
The US Congressional Committee had even discovered that within the FBI alone, field operatives' reports of suspicious activities was left unattended by their superiors at FBI HQ, with some of these reports being dismissed.
Conspiracy theories abound and if you can accept such conspiracy theories to be true, I wonder why no one give any credibility to the conspiracy theories of the monies that was supposed to have been lent to Indonesia when the late Indonesian President Suharto had faced a financial melt-down in 1997 and sought Singapore's help ?
In a tightly controlled environment such as Singapore, where information is kept in SECRET into perpetuity, such conspiracies will never see the light of day.
Can the same be said of events in the USA - when Government archives are open to the public when it reaches the statutory period of 30 years ?
Can conspiracy theories survive with information that is readily available ?
Jeb Bush (George Bush Jr's younger brother) barely retained his Governor's seat, while Donald Rumsfeld was forced out of office, Paul Wolfowitz had to climb down from his Defense position and could not even hold on to his chair at the World Bank, Lewis Libby was prosecuted for lying to the Grand Jury, leaving Dick Cheney and George Bush to hold on to the torn pages of the supposed "Pax Americana" - if such a book can even be dreamed up by the brains of these two cowboys with blood flow constricted by tight boots that were undersized for their feet.
So much for the "Pax Americana" speculation.
This is not the first time that the CIA had made poor choices, and this is not a hallmark that is the preserve ground of the CIA, as the reputation of other National Spy Agencies have suffered as much in the hands of 'double-agents'.
The Russian Spy ring that infiltrated the upper crust of Cambridge University providing leadership talents and materials to the UK Government had remained undetected for decades, and had its origins during the early days of Stalin's reign - and was exposed in the late 1960s, after a period of over forty years.
Even to this day, there remain a Russian mole deep within the UK Intelligence Service that is thought to have existed and remain unknown; and time will simply see the mole being retired and perhaps any successor will be more easily detected.
Is this anything new in the World of Spy vs Spy ?
Was there any denial on the part of the US Government that the new arrangements with the Central Asian Governments that splintered from the old Soviet Russian Bloc had opened new partnership opportunities to face new political challenges in the 21st Century ?
The war to capture Osama bin Laden and destroy Al-Qaeda had unexpectedly open new doors to new partnership, to face the potential threats from a rising China that is confident with her new found economic strengths, and to face the threats of a belligerent Iran.
Unfortunately, the new partnership that the USA had found with the Central Asian governments were not set in concrete, as most of the pacts have worn out the welcome and enthusiasm first given by these Central Asian host nations to USA.
Where is the "Pac Americana" - when the key proponents are no longer in power, with George Bush Jr unable even to get any interest in his autobiography, nor obtain any interests in speaking tours as Bill Clinton had ?
Where is the "Pac Americana" - when the USA is in debt up to its hair, and with Obama planning to spend its way out of the economic morass ?
You would have sounded more credible if you were more discerning with your efforts.
Unfortunately, the bogus is in the myth that you have created with your undiscerning propagating of a shrill and alarmist message that distorts conventions and reality.
The line taken is so obvious that only the blind and the deaf cannot discern what you have preferred to perpetuate the distorted views by subverting the truth.
The Bin Laden Family had never had any close ties with the black sheep of the family - Osama.
Shall we condemn your family for the stupidity in you ?
Spy vs Spy - has been a contest of nations that have set out to destroy the other by all means and methods to lull the other side to sleep, while surreptiously making covert plans to destroy the host.
The end game has yet to be seen.
Do you want to place your bets as to which side will win ?
The 1993 WTC attacks have already been shown to have been directed by Emad Salem, an ex-Egyptian intelligence agent and FBI informant. In fact it was the FBI that supplied him with explosives and instructions that led to the attack despite his relunctance. Another instance of a false-flag operation to increase the government's police powers.
Al Qaeda itself was a creation of the CIA during the Afghan-Soviet wars and Bin Laden was the liason with the CIA. What better way to spread US imperialism round the world than to justify it with a war on terror, perpetuated by a CIA asset? This sea-change which you referred to, was indeed, sparked by the Afghan invasion, which of itself was a war to secure energy routes in Central Asia. Likewise, Iraq followed even though the US leadership knew that the WMD story was bogus.
After 9/11, public opinion was stupified, to the extent that legislation eroding civil liberties, like Hitler's move to protect the Fatherland was welcomed after the false flag operation on the Reichstage, was rammed through Congress without even provoking any significant outrage. The US could wage two wars of aggression, not including any secret wars in Latin America and elsewhere, without much public outrage or action. Is this the reaction of a stupified public? Or is this simply democracy in action?
And which government would not react the way they did afer 9/11? Would a Muslim country like Malaysia publicly declare to the US, "You had it coming!"? Isnt foreign relations a sham? Even if, for instance, Pakistani intelligence had connections to the Mumbai bombers, would they admit it? Of course, its always denial. Even if it benefited Singapore when anything unfortunate happens to its neighbours, we will always profess condolences. Likewise, with any nation. This thing that we call decorem amongst ourselves also exist between countries.
If the Bin Laden family didnt have any ties to the supposed terrorist, why the need to fly them out immediately after the attack? If they had nothing to hide, could they provide the CIA with information about their black sheep brother?
The Pax Americana didnt only exist after 9/11. Even during the 1990s, the US was taking steps to dominate the world with its actions in the Balkans, provoking a hapless Russia while Bush, Sr's New World Order was being created in the Middle-East. Its not only recently that American bases have encircled the globe. And this isn't imperialism? This isn't an empire?
For an 'academic', I expected better ad hominem attacks. I'm sure you can do better.
Originally posted by freedomclub:Thats why there's a replay of the 19th Century Great Game on-going between the US and Russia right now. You think the MSM is going to fill the masses in?
Russia stops US on road to Afghanistan- http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KA27Df01.html
Conspiracy theories aside, terrorism and any organization that supports terrorism must be neutralized.
Five billion infidels don't want to be influenced by the religion of peace.
Originally posted by freedomclub:You're refuting the article I posted, which was written in 2001 with evidence from 1986 and 2000?
Are you saying that the UN is lying about the Taliban curtailing opium production? The truth is that Afghanistan fell from the world's top opium producer after the Taliban took power, but when the US invaded, opium production recovered to supply 90% of world supply.
"Afghanistan saw a bumper opium crop of 4,600 metric tons in 1999[9], which was the height of the Taliban rule in Afghanistan. According to a Swiss security publication, 'SicherheitsForum' (April 2006, pp:56-57), this resulted in supply exceeding demand and a drop in the high-street price of heroin and morphine in the West, endangering the profitability of European drug smugglers. It has been said that European Smugglers demanded a reduction in supply to counter lower prices. [10]
As a result of this July 2001 ban, opium poppy cultivation was reduced by 91% from the previous year's estimate of 82,172 hectares. The ban was so effective that Helmand Province, which had accounted for more than half of this area, recorded no poppy cultivation during the 2001 season.[12]
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_production_in_Afghanistan#Rise_of_the_Taliban_.281994-2001.29
You have miss the main point of my reference and That is " The Taliban is Controlling the Poppy Farms as the source of Revenue to finance their operation in afghan, and continue to enforce their distorted idealogy;and in order perpetual their influence they fund assination of tribal leaders within Pakistan who does not agreed to the Taliban leadership "
There will always be Demand for Drugs.....among the international organizes crime network because its worth billions. todays European, tomorrow Russian gang, Vietnamese gang.....its every part of the world.
Originally posted by BJK:Obama like previous US President Bush create fear and will justfiy US killing in the so called “war on terror”. In Afghanisatan and northern Pakistan, the bombing will continue just because of one man (alleged terrorist of 911). Most world leaders will parrot what are being said and support. Taliban have not attacked anyone. US and allies bombed Afghanistan and create the war from 2001. Taliban merely defending their country with light weapons (like mortars, RPG and IEDs). Who are the aggressors with aircrafts, helicopters, tanks, armoured vehicles, etc? You think, if people come to your house and start shooting at your family members, do you welcome them with warm tea? No, you will definitely fight. So that is what Taliban are doing, fight.
Afghanistan belong to the Taliban??
lol..are you on LSD provided by CIA or what?
If Afghanistan belong to the Taliban, i wonder why Ahmad Shah Massoud were fighting the Taliban and AQ??
get your facts right before spewing rubbish...
anyway Bush an asshole for what he have done for the past 8 years..But we have yet to see what Obama can do, so save your rubbish for next time Blow Job Kid..