Textbook Terrorism:

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY

Posted 7/24/2008

Islamofascism: A new study confirms our “ally” Saudi Arabia is still poisoning young Muslim minds with anti-Western textbooks. So? Its hate-filled graduates are enrolling at our colleges.

…despite promised reforms, the kingdom still teaches students to “hate the infidels.” The texts assert that it’s “permissible” for a Muslim to kill an “apostate,” an “adulterer,” a “homosexual,” as well as non-Muslims practicing “polytheism,” or Christianity. The violent ideology is introduced in a religion textbook in the first grade and reinforced and developed in following years of the public education system, culminating in the 12th grade…including to 19 academies founded by the Saudi ministry and chaired by local Saudi ambassadors in or near major foreign cities. Quotes from the latest textbooks Riyadh is propagating include:

• “The Jews and Christians are enemies of the believers.”

• “Only through force and victory over the enemies is there security and repose.

• ”The apes are Jews, the people of the Sabbath; while the swine are Christians, the infidels of the communion of Jesus.” The Saudi ministry has not removed these messages from its school texts…

(Excerpt) Read more at http://www.investors.com/editorial/editorialcontent.asp?secid=1501&status=article&id=301792048827503 …

Tags: Apes and Pigs, bigotry, hatred, Islam, Islamofascism, Jihad, Muslims, non-Muslims, Saudi Arabia, terrorism, Islam, textbooks

 It takes a lot to admit when you are wrong. It takes even more to admit you are wrong when you want to be the leader of the free world. It would take a statesman to embrace the tactics, concepts, ideas and policies that would lead to victory on the battlefield once you had adopted the poor policy of attacking the very tactics, concepts, ideas and policies that had brought success all across the board on nearly every level in a time of war.

Change? Yeah, I want change. I want Obama to change.

Barack on Iraq:

January 2007---"And until we acknowledge that reality, uh, we can send 15,000
more troops; 20,000 more troops; 30,000 more troops. Uh, I don't know any,
uh, expert on the region or any military officer that I've spoken to, uh,
privately that believes that that is gonna make a substantial difference on
the situation on the ground."

July 2007---"Here's what we know. The surge has not worked. And they said
today, 'Well, even in September, we're going to need more time.' So we're
going to kick this can all the way down to the next president, under the
president's plan... My assessment is that the surge has not worked and we
will not see a different report eight weeks from now."

September 2007---"After putting an additional 30,000 troops in... we have
gone from a horrendous situation of violence in Iraq to the same intolerable
levels of violence that we had back in June of 2006. So, essentially, after
all this we're back where we were 15 months ago... It is a course that will
not succeed."

January 2008---"I had no doubt, and I said when I opposed the surge, that
given how wonderfully our troops perform, if we place 30,000 more troops
in there, then we would see an improvement in the security situation and we
would see a reduction in the violence."

Now: "What I said was even at the time of the debate of the surge, was if
you put 30,000 troops in, of course it's going to have an impact. There's
no doubt about that."

... to say that there's a special exception here: we won't torture except when we will torture, is a legal problem.

Yup.  Not much of a standard is it?

Mayer is good stuff.  Transcript of the interview here

Here is video of Ahmad Rashid at the Carnegie Council speaking on the sanctuary of Taliban militants in Pakistan (de-stabilizing both Afghanistan and Pakistan):

The full video of the talk here via the Council.

The central and most damning thesis is the interplay between the fact that the Bush administration had no policy towards the Taliban. Al-Qaeda yes (and Musharraf was willing to deal on that front) but not on the Taliban. And the Pakistanis--for fear of rising Indian influence and their history of control of Afghanistan through the Taliban/Pashtun--never took on, in fact supported the Taliban since 9/11. This has lead to the insurgency in Afghanistan, the weakness of the Karzai government, as well as now becoming a Frankenstein's monster for the Pakistanis as there has been the creation of a Pakistani Taliban which has defeated the Pakistani Army and can no longer be controlled by the ISI (Pakistan Intelligence Services). The newly elected Pakistani civilian government has neither the backing of the military nor the Bush administration both of which continue to prop up the mortally wounded (but not dead yet!!!) dictator of Pakistan.

The failure of Afghanistan and the rise of narco-terror (Taliban) and the new/old safe haven for al-Qaeda and the primary spot for the spreading of terror worldwide (particularly to Europe) is the Pak-Afghan border is due principally to the misguided war in Iraq.

The Bush administration has been a complete failure in this region--it has as Rashid methodically describes--no strategy, no vision, no policy for the region. No reconstruction, the failed half-hearted attempt to capture Bin Laden, the over-reliance on the warlords, and the backing of the Pakistani military dictatorship (and not pressuring them at all to deal with the Taliban).

The United States is now winning the war that two years ago seemed lost.

Limited, sometimes sharp fighting and periodic terrorist bombings in Iraq are likely to continue, possibly for years. But the Iraqi government and the U.S. now are able to shift focus from mainly combat to mainly building the fragile beginnings of peace — a transition that many found almost unthinkable as recently as one year ago.

Despite the occasional bursts of violence, Iraq has reached the point where the insurgents, who once controlled whole cities, no longer have the clout to threaten the viability of the central government.

That does not mean the war has ended or that U.S. troops have no role in Iraq. It means the combat phase finally is ending, years past the time when President Bush optimistically declared it had. The new phase focuses on training the Iraqi army and police, restraining the flow of illicit weaponry from Iran, supporting closer links between Baghdad and local governments, pushing the integration of former insurgents into legitimate government jobs and assisting in rebuilding the economy.

Of course Obama can't admit to this can he? Nope! He has painted himself into a corner, any praise of success in Iraq equals praise for President Bush, and we all know that is antithetical to everything Obama has based his campaign on.

The car stopped a block down and the bicyclists surrounded the car. One biker punched the driver through an open window and another used a knife to slash the tires.

When the driver got out of the car, a male suspect struck him with an unknown object in the back of the head. The driver was taken to the hospital. His female companion was not injured.

It seems cyclists are deliberately targeting one group for their violent assaults.  This would be an example of both profiling and hate crimes, and, as we all know, those things are wrong.  When will we have a candlelight vigil for motorists?  When the term "biker gang" is mentioned, the mind does not conjure images of violent hippies wearing hemp spandex.  But then the Northwest is always on the cutting edge of leftist trends.

I should mention that a motorist insurgency has been provoked by the violent bicyclists.  A recent example:

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Intellectuality-Networking Awards fortitude get to tried communicators. Applicants pass on erenow be in existence networking pro others and are staunch up to fingered edification defunct blogs, societal networking, group bookmarking, podcasting, Newtonian universe-shaping environments(similitude for example Rubber stamp Somebody), fallowness collateral about-compass communities.

Statement-Networking projects:

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The kairotic moment as far as accouter is October 15th, 2007.

This three-part document makes a layman's case against the members thereof — most notably, News Corporation, The Associated Press, and the various ideological agents that are keeping media and state incestuously bonded and heading down the road to fascist self-destruction and global immolation.

Bite the Lamb; Cry Wolf

On September 6, 2007, Israeli Air Forces (IAF) jets violated Syrian airspace and destroyed a construction site which was alleged by Israeli officials to have been a nuclear facility intended for weaponization. The evidence accompanying the Israeli allegations, which was not officially put forward until months later, showed no wrongdoing on Syria's part. That any mainstream news outlet would report the Israeli accusations without a healthy dose of skepticism would be a travesty.

But that's just what happened: corporate news media practically parroted the U.S.-corroborated Israeli claims and omitted the exclusive criminality on the part of the accusers. The IAF raid was an act of aggressive war in gross violation of international law, and U.S. officials colluded with the Israelis; but you could go blind trying to find one mainstream news report wherein Syria's defensive disposition or even its presumed innocence is implied, much less stated as fact.

Damascus is in good standing with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and has not violated the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) — an agreement the nuclear-armed state of Israel has refused to enter, and the most indomitably-nuclear USA has serially ignored. Still, the plot has been spun around the Israeli-contrived and U.S.-corroborated threat of a nuclear-armed Syria.

How is that possible?

Nazi-German war criminal and propaganda guru, Joseph Goebbels, is often quoted on how leaders convince their subjects to believe the biggest lies in favor of the state. His instructions on the use of entertainment via theater and wireless media, to distract the captive audience from the dark cynicism of the regime's desired ends — and techniques like repetition and omission for brainwashing purposes — have not been lost on the propagandists of the neocon-Likudnik empire.

Nine months before the Israeli-U.S. war crime against Syria, a rare news report surfaced about a campaign aimed at demonizing and overthrowing the Syrian and Iranian regimes (boldness mine):

"For nearly a year, a select group of US officials has been quietly coordinating actions to counter the looming threat of a nuclear-armed Iran, including increasing the military capabilities of Arab allies such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain.

"The group, known as the Iran Syria Policy and Operations Group, or ISOG, is also coordinating a host of other actions, which include covert assistance to Iranian dissidents and building international outrage toward Iran by publicizing its alleged role in a 1994 terrorist attack in Argentina, according to interviews with half a dozen White House, Pentagon, and State Department officials who are involved in the group's work." [1]

Government officials do not reveal illicit government plans to reporters without a hitch; hence the editor's apple-polishing sterilization of the language. Notice that the so-called threat of a nuclear Iran and Iranian culpability in the Argentina attack are stated as facts, while the dubious legal status of the operation is omitted.

Those U.S. officials would have insisted on a "deep background" interview, or no story at all, if not for the editor's assurance that the final draft would reflect the U.S. venture as a benign and necessary response to rogue actions of the Iranian and Syria governments. This is one way in which news media lie for the government with subtlety and plausible deniability while appearing to challenge power.

Fraudulent chicken-hawking for violent regime-change in Tehran and Damascus is nothing new for Michael Ledeen and his neocon contemporaries. One week after the above report, the treasonous co-architect of pre-invasion lies about Iraq WMDs could be found trumpeting the ISOG battle call:

[T]he only way to demonstrate a will to win is to go after the Iranians and the Syrians ... God knows the evidence of Syrian involvement is overwhelming, and the latest information reportedly shows they are on both sides of the Sunni/Shiite divide. ...

If we do not tackle Syria, we will simply provide the terrorists with more targets. If we do go after them, we may yet win this thing. As luck would have it, this is the ideal moment to go after the Iranians, since their supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, is either dead or dying, and a vicious internal power struggle is under way in Tehran.

We should propose a better solution to the Iranian people: revolution, leading to their freedom. That would require the president and the secretary of State to call for regime change in Iran and Syria, something from which they have always retreated in the past. But if we want to win, that’s the first step. Anybody ready? [2]

One columnist, constantly spewing false and criminally-subversive filth, isn't enough to affect mass sentiment. But, if enough Michael Ledeen's spew their lies and conjecture via a substantial array of media — regularly, consistently, and over a duration — a sufficient portion of the audience will eventually, if unwittingly, accept the insanity as normalcy.

Thus, a dumbed-down (mainstream) mindset is incubated and the illegal wars on Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran are easily sold.

[Source: bravenewfilms]

The efforts of ISOG, Ledeen, et al., have successfully passed through Congress numerous times over the past few years. The latest such effort is — surprise! — House Resolution 385: "Condemning the Attack on the AMIA Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires, Argentine, in July 1994 and for other purposes, before the US House of Representatives, July 15, 2008."

Luckily, some U.S. officials actually know what's up, or at least care to speak out. Congressman Ron Paul warns that the neocon regime-change fanatics are "using a crime to justify a war," and as usual, he is right.

Indeed, the natural complement to the repetition of big lies is the omission of even bigger truths.

Around the same time that ISOG was reported to have intensified its campaign against Syria and Iran (early-2006), ISOG member and Iran-Contra pal of Ledeen's — Elliot Abrams — was planning his own shakedown operation in the Israeli-Occupied Territories of Palestine: uncivil war.

The plan, which employed a mercenary militia loosely connected to Palestinian minority party, Fatah, was to overtake Gaza and overthrow the newly-elected Parliamentary majority party, Hamas. (Neocon-Likudniks won't put up with the self-determination of those who resist their ethnic cleansing of them.)

Curiously enough, funding, training, and safe haven toward what Abrams termed a "hard coup" were provided by the U.S. and Israeli governments and some of the same "Arab allies" mentioned in the above report on the ISOG's campaign against Iran and Syria.

By the time the Boston Globe "covered" ISOG's treachery, Abrams' conspiracy had already been leaked to European and Middle Eastern news media and governments. By Winter 2006–7, the leaked story made its way to independent media outlets on the Internet. By June '07, Hamas had put down the Abrams coup in street battles against the Fatah-linked mercenaries (mostly because they caught word about the plot before anyone else).

Very few non-Ministry experts, like Nir Rosen, were able to relate this truthful version of the events in the mainstream, but as marginalized voices. Rosen's interview with CNN's John Roberts only appears on the Internet in transcript form. As is typically the case, the story that did make the mainstream was a total inversion of reality in favor of the state criminals. [3]

Reuters' and AP's reports on this subject read like U.S. and Israeli government press releases. As with the Israeli aggression against Syria, the victims are blamed. Instead of U.S. and Israeli entities committing war crimes, Hamas — and by extension, all Palestinians who resist the Israeli occupation of their land by supporting Hamas and electing them to power — are deemed militant insurrectionists and conspirators. The illicit state acts were omitted altogether.

A complete fantasy has been reported over and over in thousands of newspapers and other news media since. It goes roughly thus: "The violent, anti-Israel, Islamist [sic] Hamas plotted and carried out a coup against the pro-U.S. moderate [sic] Fatah; therefore, Israel responded by blockading Gaza in an effort to make the Palestinian people rise up and bring down Hamas, which is dedicated to the violent destruction of the Jewish state."

What is most heinously omitted is the Israeli and U.S. destruction of the state-less Palestinian people they are occupying. Absent are the Israeli kidnappings and assassinations of Hamas legislators, their family members, and their supporters since the party was elected to power.

Omitted also are the crippling sanctions that have been in place since then, and the supreme Israeli war crimes, like the destruction of Gaza's only power plant and vital civilian infrastructure the previous Summer. News media would have us believe that the illegal blockade began after Hamas "staged a bloody, violent, brown-skinned, Islamist coup."

As a result of the repetitions of lies and omissions of truths, all Palestinians who work for Hamas, support Hamas, or refuse to collaborate with the Fatah junta or the Israeli occupiers in the West Bank, are seen as being worthy of the collective punishment they receive at the hands of the U.S., Israeli, and E.U. governments.

These conspiracies against Syria, Iran, Iraq, and the Palestinians take root in neocon-Likudnik policy papers penned for U.S. and Israeli leaders like Benyamin Netanyahu, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush; conceived by neocons like Richard Perle, Meyrav and David Wurmser, Paul Wolfowitz, and Lewis Libby; peddled by neocons like Ledeen, Charles Krauthammer, and Bill Kristol on Fox News and in The Associated Press; and implemented as U.S. policy and legislation by neocons like Abrams, Gary Ackerman, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, and Joe Lieberman.

A Precedent

During the Nüremberg Trials after WWII, Nazi German politicians, media moguls, bankers, arms makers, ideologues, and other high-ranking arms of the state were charged and sentenced for crimes against humanity, war crimes, and crimes against peace for inciting, committing, and conspiring to commit those acts of aggression.

Among the exhibits entered as evidence against the defendants were public statements similar to the type made by Ledeen: the kind that discount potential genocides and economic disasters, while encouraging insurrection and perpetual war — all semantically smoke-screened as noble acts of liberation.

Other statements were more explicit and nakedly asserted, along the lines of what U.S. mainstream news media are inciting today: state-sponsored criminal acts of terror, aggressive war, and insurrection in Iran, for instance.

[Source: irancoverage]

Ideologues of the neocon-Likudnik empire follow the repetition-omission principle religiously. One prime example is their favorite fear-mongering fallacy that says Iran is Nazi Germany and President Ahmadinejad is Hitler.

Of course, Iran is neither a regional military-superpower nor an occupier of foreign lands, while the neocon-Likudnik empire is even more aggressive and more militarily dominant than the Third Reich ever was. But that aside, there are in fact striking parallels between Nazi treatment of their chosen enemies and the U.S. and allied approaches to theirs.

Nazi ideologues and news publishers alike portrayed certain ethnic, religious, and political groups in ways similar to the way Arabs, Muslims, and Persians are portrayed today by the neocon Ministry. And like the neocon-Likudnik empire, the Reich's blamed such groups for all "attacks on the homeland."

Almost immediately after the attacks on the World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2001, Arab- and Muslim-demonizing propaganda permeated the airwaves. One particularly conniving and hideous concoction involved footage of Palestinians dancing joyously in the streets. But it was a fraud: the celebration shown was taken from footage of something from several years earlier. The real dancing celebration involved Israeli covert agents who were also filming the event as it unfolded.

This false and demonizing propaganda is the kind Nazi propagandists were punished for.

[Source: Ryantineocons]

Why is the story of Israel spying on the United States NOT on the evening news? Well, it actually was, but was quickly pulled by the news outlet that ran the story (Fox!) as a result of pressure from the attack dogs of the Israel Lobby.

Neocon ideologists like Daniel Pipes, Brigitte Gabriel, Steve Emerson, Andrew Bostom, et al., make comfortable livings as marginalizers and dehumanizers for that Lobby. Their job is to make people believe that Israel is not the most prolific terrorist state, and that the U.S. government is not the biggest sponsor of Israeli and other international terror entities.

Their craft boils down to dissent-crushing guilt projection.

A favorite pastime for these racist pseudo-scholars is blackmailing so-called moderate Muslims using vitriol against so-called extremist, Islamist [sic], or terrorist Muslims — holding all Muslims (and the non-Muslims who defend them) accountable for the despicable actions of a few.

"If you're not speaking out, you're aiding the Islamofascists," to paraphrase the erstwhile-Lebanese Gabriel, who has had no trouble with Israel's carpet-bombings and occupation of her native country all her life.

"Western European societies are unprepared for the massive immigration of brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and maintaining different standards of hygiene. All immigrants bring exotic customs and attitudes, but Muslim customs are more troublesome than most." — Daniel Pipes, quoted in Le Monde Diplomatique, July 2003.

These Arabists [sic], orientalists [sic], Middle East [sic] experts, and terrorism [sic] experts claim, either baselessly or according to rigged polls, that a certain percentage of Muslims in the world are extremists, and that thus, tens of millions of Islamofascists [sic] are out there somewhere — ESPECIALLY IN THE UNITED STATES! — therefore, we better heed their counsel. Which requires their captive audience to put pressure on local governments to prevent new mosque construction in their towns and to shut down existing ones. College professors must be reported to law enforcement and the dean if they disagree with the government's so-called war on terror. And if they don't comply, the educators must be forced to resign or be fired.

Dark Age justice from those claiming to be on the "civilized" side of their fantastic Clash.

These xenophobic charlatans baselessly claim that there are Hamas, Hezbullah, and Al-Qaida "sleeper cells" in the United States. But to this day, the only cells shown to exist in this regard are the ones which mostly Arabs and Muslims are stuffed into without formal charges or due process. Many violent and inhuman activities transpire in and around those cells, but precious little of it involves sleep.

Most of these agents of inhumanity have been exposed and discredited more than once. Still, corporate media and news agencies rely heavily on them for TV ratings and newspaper and periodical readership. Again: If enough of them are given air time to spew their lies and conjecture via a substantial array of media — regularly, consistently, and over a duration — a sufficient portion of the audience will eventually accept the inhumanity as necessary or even noble.

Thanks mostly to the dehumanizers and their partners in news media, the Bush Administration and the Pentagon have gotten away with this and this, for example.

Like that of today's ideologists, Nazis Alfred Rosenberg's and Julius Streicher's demonizing and dehumanizing propaganda helped to convince the audience that anyone or any group deemed as a threat to the Third Reich deserved tyranny and death.

For their false condemnation and collective punishment of their chosen enemies, Nazi Ministry figures were convicted of crimes against humanity. For similar offenses, neocon-Likudnik ministers have received a pass (so far).

Goddamn Pieces of Paper 

Also entered as evidence at Nüremberg were violations of the post-WWI Versailles Treaty: a one-sided affair conceived by the "victors" and meant to humiliate the nation of Germany, blame it for the war, and keep its foreign-occupied population from self-determination or a healthy, competing economy. Any proud and self-respecting people would have defied such a tyrannical mandate.

Unfortunately for the German people, from their radicalized masses arose the most undesirable leadership, whose belligerent nature only lent credence to the ideological demons hyperbolized by FDR & Co. But if the Germans violated Versailles out of self-preservation, the Allied powers did much worse out of sadistic self-enrichment and the necessity of projecting their own guilt.

Which brings up another good comparison between USA versus Germany and USA versus Iran: the illegitimacy of the international mandates cited as justifications for preemption, the rank hypocrisy of prosecuting them unilaterally, and the disastrous effects those aggressive measures have on civilians.

Sanctions against Iran are legally baseless but for conjured neocon fear-mongering in the media and strong-arming in the U.N. The United States is perhaps the worst violator of the NPT, yet the neocon-Likudnik empire has convinced the world, through false propaganda, that Iran is.

Iran has been accused by some U.S. leaders of providing aid to those who have killed "hundreds of our brave men and women." Yet in Iraq, the U.S. and allies have shown to have killed more than a million non-combatants and caused millions more to be refugees, and U.S.-backed mercenary armies operate inside Iran, along its Iraqi and Pakistani borders, committing acts of terror and war.

You may have noticed that mainstream news reports never mention the U.S.-Iranian Algiers Accords, or even the U.S. Constitution, in the context of current U.S. build-up of aggressive war on Iran.

Signed in January 1981 by the United States and Iran, the Accords prohibit political and military intervention in Iranian affairs by the United States. The U.S. Constitution states that such binding agreements not violating the spirit of the Constitution itself are to be treated as a constitutional mandate. Every U.S.-involved sanction, asset-freeze, and embargo against Iran, and every U.S. dollar and man-hour spent in support of Iranian opposition groups, should be prosecuted as a violation thereof.

The Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MeK) is listed as a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department. Its headquarters are Paris and London, but its members also live in, and operate out of, Camp Ashraf, Iraq, under U.S. and "Coalition" military protection. This much has been revealed in some mainstream news media.

But the so-called Iranian dissident group has also received hundreds of millions of U.S.-taxpayer dollars for its operations inside Iraq and Iran and in exile over the past few years, as well as secure training grounds in the United States. Illicit only begins to describe the nature of these acts; yet barely a handful of conscientious investigative journalists and credible military- and foreign-affairs experts have reported on them.

[Source: artbell]

Painful Parallels

The Allied powers mindfully committed far more atrocities, against non-combatants, than any other party of either world war. They violated not only Versailles, but many other binding international agreements including Wilson's 14 Points, the Hague Regulations of 1907, and the post-war precedents set at Nüremberg for which the Nazis were condemned and executed.

Allied malfeasance was rampant. Up to a point during WWII, U.S. and international bankers, politicians, and enterprising corporatists, including President Bush's grandfather, were financing and profiteering off both sides, and generally rigging the apparatus quite handily.

How did those agents of empire get away with it? Well, for obvious starters, the three main so-called victors of WWII — the USA, Great Britain, and Russia — comprised the panel of judges, thanks to their self-granted infallibility (UN veto power, ultimately) by way of being "the winners." We all know that saying about victors and spoils. And besides, who's going to challenge the bullies when they have all the wherewithal and they're all on the same side?

But how was this U.S. and allied exceptionalism and legal immunity justified with the real world? The same way the initiation of those wars were made possible: Absolutist Propaganda.

During the build up to war in Europe, U.S. and Allied news media hyped Adolf Hitler's extreme rhetoric and Germany's violations of treaties and such, while omitting the violations of the same international laws by the FDR (and Truman) Administration. Allied savagery in the form of sanctions, embargoes, blockades, and boycotts were easily packaged as a credible and lawful means of enforcing ill-conceived, pro-allied mandates like Versailles, and "reining in the Third Reich." (Sound familiar?)

The tens of millions of non-combatants massacred and starved to death by the Allied powers were not newsworthy during the war; nor were their murders prosecutable afterward. The U.S. and its allies were defending themselves, fighting evil, and spreading democracy; or at least that was the predominant message over the airwaves and front pages of most of the world's media.

The invasion and occupation of Iraq and the ongoing shakedown of Iran have been sold in the same manner, only more prolifically. The U.S. government, during George W. Bush's second term alone, has spent hundreds of millions in U.S.-taxpayer dollars on virtually-unchallenged insurrection and propaganda operations overseas. The Third Reich's propaganda operations were nasty, for sure; but they were only effective within a regional radius, at best.

The neocon-Likudnik empire's apologists would rather you not know that the Angelic FDR or the Noble Wilson or the Merciful Lincoln shut down newspapers and incarcerated journalists, intellectual dissidents and in the rarest cases, politicians, that even-handed coverage of "the noble effort" were deemed unpatriotic and treasonable, and that Japanese-Americans were kidnapped and forced into "internment camps" by the FDR regime. (And if these things are discussed as facts, they are used as proof that "even our most lionized leaders did it, so what's the big fuss? It's a necessary evil for our own good!")

And never mind the ridiculously contradictory bedfellowhood among the Allied leaders. The only genocidal tyrants were Hitler and Mussolini. Oh yeah, and Stalin. But he was our tyrant. He was always reacting to the aggression of others — to the tune of tens of millions murdered. Just like Israel is "our best ally in the war on terror" and is always reacting to the aggression from that army-less existential threat called the Palestinians — to the tune of a 60-year, genocidal ethnic cleansing. Just like the Jewish [sic] state and the House of Saud are our greatest partners in "free trade" and "national defense" in the Middle East — to the tune of at least $5 billion per year and the looming vengeance of millions of the region's oppressed.

Nor will corporate media even hint at the parallels between: 1) the Russian and German military occupations in Europe and 2) the U.S. and Israeli regimes operating within the Israeli-Occupied Territories of Palestine (IOPTs) and Iraq.

But are prison camps not being operated, wherein detainees are held without charges or due process, tortured, and murdered? Are journalists and cameramen not being unlawfully detained, beaten, and killed by occupation forces? Are major news centers like Al-Jazeera, as well as local press offices, not being raided and shut down? Are U.S. occupation forces not writing self-lauding pieces and paying Iraqi newspapers to publish them as news reports? Are hotels where dozens of journalists stay not being shelled?

Are occupied people not collectively punished for lawfully resisting the occupation and ethnic cleansing, or for simply being? Are the houses of the occupied people not being demolished to pay the penance for their relatives' alleged crimes, or to make way for racial colonies?

Are U.S. attorneys general and other government officials not perverting the rule of law to justify these acts and immunize themselves and their cronies from future prosecution (thus admitting guilt)?

Do these and all other such acts on the part of the indomitable occupiers not constitute war crimes?

Of course not. The global policemen are always right, and their inconceivable policies are always justified, because they were fighting the evil terrorists and their evil ideologies. At least, that's what they would have mainstream society believe.

But who are "they" and how do they do it?

◄ Part Two: Think Tanks to Holding Tanks ►

[1] http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/01/02/us_unit_works_quietly_to_counter_irans_sway/
[2] http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZTYxZDcxMzkzNzhiMzFkNTAwMzkxNjE0Y2FkNmM0MTE=
[3] The conspiracy was actually laid out in unprecedented detail by the respectable Vanity Fair, but was released a year late and under the byline of a reporter whose otherwise high career marks were lowered by his being duped by the Ahmed Chalabi scam a few years earlier. In this case, the Ministry tweaked both the flow of information and the perception of verity.
See: http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2007/09/mi6-mi5-intelligence-briefings.

Having established that we are indeed at war with al Qaeda, the real question, as Clausewitz would suggest, is what kind of war are we engaged in? And that is where the Bush administration has made a number of errors, the deepest of which is to argue that the war against al Qaeda is similar to the wars against communism and fascism.

This is nonsense, of course, as the al Qaeda threat is orders of magnitude smaller than Mutually Assured Destruction or the triumph of Nazism in Europe...

The second mistake the Bush administration made was to conflate all sorts of organizations and movements from Hezbollah, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood and al Qaeda into a global enemy thereby falling into bin Laden's rhetorical trap that there really is a global jihadist movement arraigned against us rather than disparate groups of Islamists, some violent, others not, with their own local agendas who often despise each other intensely.

The third mistake was to say that you are "either with us or against us." A much smarter approach would have been to say is that "if you are not with them you are with us."

Bergen also notes that defeating terrorism means reducing it to a second order threat.  Nice formulation.  .

As virtually no big city except calcutta has been left untouched by bomb blasts, i assume that terrorist are managing to setup a good sleeper cells networks and evading detection quite successfully to operate with such ease and flexibility and worse to operate at will. This is indeed a new low for our Nations Internal Security.

Question is what are the CBCIDs, the IB and RAW doing ? Are they operating with their hands tied behind their back or are they being used to spy on the other parties and politicians instead of tackling the terrorist threat ? For once S Patil (Ofstumped has a page dedicalted to his incompetence) is keeping his mouth shut lest he embarrass the Congress even further after the Singh episode . Looks like the ISI/ foreign hand will be blamed yet again in an attempt to cover up the deficiencies of the Politicians and State Machinary when the partys persue terrorists as vote banks.

Supposedly it is the Indian Mujahideen who are busy these days. This time it is the BJP ruled states under their radar First Jaipur then Bangalore and Ahmedabad, god knows which city will be next ? Looks like the Govt is outsourcing its responsibility of Right to life (of its common citizen) to Insurance companies while taking a terrorists right to life rather seriously. Terror insurance - Accident insurance and Life insurance business will surely benefit.

At what point do Muslims get to refer to the successful attempt(s) at their annihilation a 'war on terror'?

Is Obama the 'Antiwar Candidate'?
Two words of advice for the antiwar voter: Caveat emptor

Justin Raimondo | July 23, 2008

Now that Barack Obama has pulled the rug out from under John McCain's "victory or death" campaign theme, with the invaluable assistance of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, he's preparing the way for a surge of his own: an Afghan surge, to be precise. Averring that we need to put more troops in Afghanistan, whose U.S.-supported "president" functions as little more than the mayor of Kabul, Obama is posing earnestly next to as many uniforms as he can, hoping to establish his credentials as a plausible wartime president.

So, you thought we'd be rid of the endless "war on terrorism" once we got George W. Bush out of the White House, and ensconced a Democrat in his place? Well, think again, and get ready for an escalation of the Other War – the one in Afghanistan, a much tougher and more intractable prospect than Iraq by a longshot.

The Obama/Democratic Party line on the Middle East, in a nutshell, amounts to this: the Bush administration, through some mysterious internal malfunction, allowed itself to be "diverted" from the task of pursuing al-Qaeda, which was based in Afghanistan, and instead went after Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi Ba'athists because, as Paul Wolfowitz said, "it's doable." The word "neocon" – and any references, however oblique, to the key role played by foreign lobbyists in rushing us into war – never passes the candidate's lips. After all, that would be "divisive."

Aside from glossing over the history of our most recent involvement in the Middle East, however, Obama's prescription for more troops in the Afghan theater promises a disaster potentially far more serious than the one perpetrated by his predecessor in Iraq. At least Iraq, for all its horrific casualties and costs, was "doable." Afghanistan isn't. The Soviets discovered this, to their sorrow, in the 1980s, as did the Brits in 1842. Neither ever succeeded in subduing this proud and tough-minded people, as the British historian Sir John Keegan pointed out in a 2001 piece for the Telegraph:

"Efforts to occupy and rule [Afghanistan] usually ended in disaster. But straightforward punitive expeditions … were successful on more than one occasion.

"It should be remembered that, in 1878, the British did succeed in bringing the Afghans to heel [with a punitive expedition]. Lord Roberts' march from 'Kabul to Kandahar' was one of [Queen] Victoria's most celebrated wars. The Russians, moreover, foolishly did not try to punish rogue Afghans, as Roberts did, but to rule the country. Since Afghanistan is ungovernable, the failure of their efforts was predictable.…

"America should not seek to change the regime, but simply to find and kill the terrorists. It should do so without pity."

The smoke was still rising from the World Trade Center and the Pentagon as Keegan's article saw print, and today the prospects of a "punitive expedition" are about as dim as the hope of establishing a Jeffersonian republic in that tortured terrain. The time for such an effort has long since passed. Bush botched it, and, unlike Hollywood, history doesn't allow second takes. Bin Laden and his confreres have since spread far and wide, recruiting an entirely new generation of jihadists – with the invaluable help of our own policymakers, who have given the terrorist icon plenty of grist for his mill.

U.S. efforts in Afghanistan have been marked by alternate bouts of unmitigated brutality and do-gooder social engineering, often occurring simultaneously. I've lost count of the number of times we've "mistakenly" bombed a wedding party or even the Afghan police, denied it, and then later on sheepishly admitted our error, attributing it to "the fog of war." This has happened so many times that President Hamid Karzai has raised the subject in public, his anger palpable. On the other hand, we've been busy on the do-gooder front, as if to make up for our deadly "errors," pushing women's rights and bringing the alleged benefits of "modernity" to the mountainous land that time forgot. Yet this effort has not been welcomed. It has been stubbornly resisted by a proud and deeply religious people, whose traditional mores and cultural history are so far removed from our own.

This sort of thing has been tried before – by the Soviets, who tried to impose land-reform measures and gender equality at bayonet point. Obama, with his idealistic "yes-we-can"-ism, seems all too likely to reattempt it. Already he's pledged to commit more money and other economic assistance, as well as more troops, to Karzai's beleaguered and deeply corrupt regime – which means more tax dollars thrown into a bottomless hole.

Furthermore, this well-meaning earnestness will boomerang in our faces, as the age-old customs of an inward-looking people are violated and the yoke of foreign rule is tightened. Out in the Afghan wilds, Kabul is just as far removed as Washington, at least figuratively, and the "country" of Afghanistan is largely a Western fiction, a geographical rather than a political or national entity that is no more unified than, say, East Africa. Tribes, clans, and sub-clans, various ethnic and regional groups and sub-groups, all with their labyrinthine histories of conflict and collaboration – it's a chaotic and often stormy mix that can't be managed or "reformed." When the NATO commander in charge of the Afghan front reiterates the West's desire to impose "democracy and good governance," one wonders what planet he's living on.

The re-invasion and occupation of Afghanistan will give President Obama a chance to highlight his hawkishness and prove himself to the War Party as a good and loyal servant. It will also allow the Democratic Party to refurbish its credentials as a tough-minded crew, ready, willing, and able to spill as much innocent blood as the GOP in establishing U.S. hegemony in the Middle East. This refurbishing, however, will be short-lived, because the Afghans will be no more receptive to Obama's charms than they were to Queen Victoria's civilizing mission and Yuri Andropov's "proletarian internationalism."

It isn't just Afghanistan, however, that provides a clue as to Obama's future development as a wartime president in the tradition of Bush, Truman, and FDR: the appointment of Dennis Ross as his principal Middle East adviser is good news for the War Party, specifically for that crucial branch of it that specializes in promoting Israel's ambitions over America's national interests.

No matter which president Ross worked for, Democrat or Republican – and he's worked for both – his interventionist agenda and his sympathy for the interests of a certain Middle Eastern nation were no secret. His sympathy, too, for poor, persecuted Scooter Libby prompted him to endorse that convicted felon's defense fund. And he was right in there with Bill Kristol and the Project for a New American Century in agitating for war with Iraq.

In a future Obama administration, the so-called liberal hawks will have their chief factotum in Ross, who is presumably up for a major role in the Obama administration – perhaps national security adviser, or even secretary of state. That is good news for the tiny yet influential Joe Lieberman wing of the Democratic Party, and very bad news indeed for Obama's anti-interventionist supporters, or even just ordinary war-weary Americans. As Leon Hadar points out:

"Another contingency of liberal hawks occupies positions of influence in Washington think-tanks, including the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, where such scholar-practitioners as former U.S. ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk and Kenneth Pollack have been cheerleaders for the Iraq War and have approved of Bush's policies on Iran and Israel. In fact, one does not have to be a veteran political observer to predict Indyk, Pollack, and other experts on the Middle East, like former peace negotiator Dennis Ross, would probably play a major role in influencing the policy of a future Democratic administration. In that case, the Democratic Party activists who rallied against Joe Lieberman should not be surprised if Bush's Democratic successor ends up pursuing policies that might be described as neoconservatism with a smiling Democratic face."

Ross acted as a front man for the government of then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak during the Clinton-era Oslo negotiations, poses as a "peacemaker," shamelessly promotes Israel's interests, and works for AIPAC and AIPAC-affiliated organizations yet strenuously denies there's such a creature as the Israel lobby. He is virtually the living embodiment of business-as-usual insofar as U.S. foreign policy is concerned, and his closeness to Obama – the two stood side-by-side during the candidate's Mideast tour – bodes ill for the antiwar voter shopping around for a viable candidate.

This isn't "change" – it's the same old B.S., rooted in some pretty basic misconceptions. The idea that the U.S. can "solve" – permanently and decisively – the terrorism problem is an illusion ingrained, perhaps, in the American psyche, which is fond of applying metaphors like "get the job done" to complex realities barely comprehensible to the Western mind. It's as if the making of foreign policy were like plumbing, and it's merely a matter of "fixing" things that somehow got broken. That our own policies caused this breakage in the first place, often directly, is almost never acknowledged, and when it is, the proposed "solution" is guaranteed to worsen rather than alleviate the original problem.

The mistakes of the past cannot be undone, but if we learn from them we can minimize the amount of "blowback" that continues to come at us from all directions. Alas, it appears that, no matter who wins the White House this November, a foreign policy made by those who have learned nothing and regret nothing will remain in place.

Honorable Exit From Empire

Patrick J. Buchanan | July 25, 2008

As any military historian will testify, among the most difficult of maneuvers is the strategic retreat. Napoleon's retreat from Moscow, Lee's retreat to Appomattox and MacArthur's retreat from the Yalu come to mind. The British Empire abandoned India in 1947 – and a Muslim-Hindu bloodbath ensued.

France's departure from Indochina was ignominious, and her abandonment of hundreds of thousands of faithful Algerians to the FALN disgraceful. Few American can forget the humiliation of Saigon '75, or the boat people, or the Cambodian holocaust.

Strategic retreats that turn into routs are often the result of what Lord Salisbury called "the commonest error in politics ... sticking to the carcass of dead policies."

From 1989 to 1991, with the collapse of the Soviet Empire and breakup of the U.S.S.R., America had an opportunity to lay down its global burden and become again what Jeane Kirkpatrick called "a normal country in a normal time."

We let the opportunity pass by, opting instead to use our wealth and power to convert the world to democratic capitalism. And we have reaped the reward of all the other empires that went before: A sinking currency, relative decline, universal enmity, a series of what Rudyard Kipling called "the savage wars of peace."

Yet, opportunity has come anew for America to shed its imperial burden and become again the republic of our fathers.

The chairman of Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang Party has just been hosted for six days by Beijing. Commercial flights have begun between Taipei and the mainland. Is not the time ripe for America to declare our job done, that the relationship between China and Taiwan is no longer a vital interest of the United States?

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government wants a status of forces agreement with a timetable for full withdrawal of U.S. troops. Is it not time to say yes, to declare that full withdrawal is our goal as well, that the United States seeks no permanent bases in Iraq?

On July 4, Reuters, in a story headlined "Poland Rejects U.S. Missile Offer," reported from Warsaw: "Poland spurned as insufficient on Friday a U.S. offer to boost its air defenses in return for basing anti-missile interceptors on its soil. ...

"'We have not reached a satisfactory result on the issue of increasing the level of Polish security,' Prime Minister Donald Tusk told a news conference after studying the latest U.S. proposal."

Tusk is demanding that America "provide billions of dollars worth of U.S. investment to upgrade Polish air defenses in return for hosting 10 two-stage missile interceptors," said Reuters.

Reflect if you will on what is going on here.

By bringing Poland into NATO, we agreed to defend her against the world's largest nation, Russia, with thousands of nuclear weapons. Now the Polish regime is refusing us permission to site 10 anti-missile missiles on Polish soil, unless we pay Poland billions for the privilege.

Has Uncle Sam gone senile?

No. Tusk has Sam figured out. The old boy is so desperate to continue in his Cold War role as world's Defender of Democracy he will even pay the Europeans – to defend Europe.

Why not tell Tusk that if he wants an air defense system, he can buy it; that we Americans are no longer willing to pay Poland for the privilege of defending Poland; that the anti-missile missile deal is off. And use cancellation of the missile shield to repair relations with a far larger and more important power, Vladimir Putin's Russia.

Consider, too, the opening South Korea is giving us to end our 60-year commitment to defend her against the North. For weeks, Seoul hosted anti-American protests against a trade deal that allows U.S. beef into South Korea. Koreans say they fear mad-cow disease.

Yet, when a new deal was cut to limit imports to U.S. beef from cattle less than 30 months old, that too was rejected by the protesters. Behind the demonstrations lies a sediment of anti-Americanism.

In 2002, a Pew Research Center survey of 42 nations found 44 percent of South Koreans, second highest number of any country, holding an unfavorable view of the United States. A Korean survey put the figure at 53 percent, with 80 percent of youth holding a negative view. By 39 percent to 35 percent, South Koreans saw the United States as a greater threat than North Korea.

Can someone explain why we keep 30,000 troops on the DMZ of a nation whose people do not even like us?

The raison d'être for NATO was the Red Army on the Elbe. It disappeared two decades ago. The Chinese army left North Korea 50 years ago. Yet NATO endures and the U.S. Army stands on the DMZ. Why?

Because, if all U.S. troops were brought home from Europe and Korea, 10,000 rice bowls would be broken. They are the rice bowls of politicians, diplomats, generals, journalists and think tanks who would all have to find another line of work.

And that is why the Empire will endure until disaster befalls it, as it did all the others.

Barack Obama uses Israel visit to reassure Jewish voters
Senator Barack Obama used a visit to Israel today to reassure its people and Jewish voters at home that he would not undermine the traditionally close links between America and its key ally in the Middle East.

Tim Butcher | July 24, 2008

Throughout a hectic day Mr Obama repeatedly drove home the message that a White House led by him would continue to back Israel.

It appeared to be a pre-emptive strike against Right-wing Republicans who hint at Mr Obama's weakness on the issue of militant Islam by using such devices as repeatedly referring to his middle name, which is Hussein.

But on the Iranian nuclear programme, Palestinian terrorism, the status of Jerusalem and all other issues he stuck closely to the script of robustly supporting Israel.

Mr Obama also deliberately did something his Republican rival, Senator John McCain, failed to do during a recent visit to Israel, by aligning himself with the moderate Palestinian leadership of Mahmoud Abbas.

While Mr McCain did not visit the occupied territories, Mr Obama went to Ramallah in the West Bank to meet Mr Abbas, the president of the Palestinian national authority. He also denounced Mr Abbas's militant Hamas rivals, who control Gaza.

While this went down well with his hosts, his intended audience was Jewish voters in America who, according to analysts, threaten his chances in the presidential election if they judge him a weak supporter of Israel.

Aluf Benn, a leading columnist in the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, caught the true flavour of the visit in a piece headlined "Obama Visit Is All About Wooing Jewish American Voters".

Mr Obama used a visit to Sderot, an Israeli town often hit by rockets fired by Palestinian militants in Gaza, to make clear his opposition to Iran acquiring nuclear weapons and his willingness to consider military action to enforce it.

"A nuclear Iran would pose a grave threat and the world must prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon," said Mr Obama.

He added the international community should offer "big sticks and big carrots" to persuade Iran to halt its nuclear programme.

If elected, the Democratic Party candidate said he would take "no options off the table" in dealing with the issue of nuclear-armed Iran. This was a direct reference to the option of a military strike.

On the issue of Jerusalem he said he supported Israel's claim to the city as its capital but he added that the final arrangements for the city would be dealt with by Israeli and Palestinian negotiators.

"I continue to say that Jerusalem will be the capital of Israel," he said.

"I have said it before and will say it again ... but I've also said that it is a final status issue that has to be dealt with by the parties involved."

This was subtly different from the last time he dealt publicly with Jerusalem when, in a speech to American supporters of Israel, he angered Palestinian moderates by pre-judging negotiations and saying an undivided Jerusalem should be the Israeli capital.

Throughout Israel yesterday he enjoyed the sort of adulation normally given to rock stars, let alone actual heads of state.

It was a deliberate strategy to win the backing the Jewish voters in America who chose Hilary Clinton over the Illinois senator during the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.

"The most important thing for me to share is the historic and special relationship between the United States and Israel, one that cannot be broken," he said.

"One that I have affirmed throughout my career and one that I will intend to not only continue but strengthen in an Obama administration."

After a breakfast meeting with Ehud Barak, the Israeli defence minister, he moved to a meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the Israeli opposition Likud party, before meeting Shimon Peres, Israel's president.

He also squeezed in a visit to Yad Vashem, Israel's memorial to victims of the Holocaust.

His movements were met with the sort of security used by Israel for President George W. Bush's two visits to the Jewish state earlier this year.

Unlike Mr Bush, Mr Obama brought with him an entourage of US television network anchors and their support staff, all of whom added to appalling traffic snarl-ups in the notoriously congested streets of Jerusalem.

"I'm here on this trip to reaffirm the special relationship between Israel and the United States and my abiding commitment to Israel's security and my hope that I can serve as an effective partner, whether as a U.S. senator or as president," he said after his meeting with Mr Peres.

Mr Obama praised Mr Peres, a veteran of the Israeli political scene who served terms as the country's prime minister before reaching the presidency, the head of state.

"For most of Israel's 60 years, you have been deeply involved in this miracle that has blossomed and we are extremely grateful, not just as Americans but as world citizens, to your outstanding service to your country and the insight that you have shared with us," Sen Obama said.

President Peres urged Sen Obama to be a great president for the sake of the battles against terror and world poverty.

During his meeting with Mr Netanyahu, Mr Obama was reported to have given a very robust defence of the need to fight extremism.

Less than a day before his arrival, an Arab from East Jerusalem, drove a construction digger at vehicles full of people just a few hundred yards from where Mr Obama was staying, injuring 16 people. The driver was shot dead.

"I'll never compromise Israel's security," he said

"Terrorism is not theoretical, it's right here a block away from this hotel, and it must be fought with full force and strength."

His arrival in Israel has been met with gushing editorials in the local media with one commentator writing that if Sen Obama wins the presidency "every decision that he takes will affect our lives".

Itamar Eichner wrote in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper: "Barack Obama landed at Ben-Gurion Airport, and out of the plane stepped Barack Obama, like a rock star, into a particularly emotional reception.

"Israel's political echelon has never been so excited to welcome an American senator.

"Everybody realises that there is quite a good chance that this man will enter the White House in less than five months, and every decision that he takes will affect our lives."

A senior Downing Street source said that they had never intended there to be a televised press conference with Mr Obama.

“We are following protocol. The reality is Prime Ministers do not hold press conferences with people unless they are elected or heads of state. There will be a photo-call in Downing Street in the usual way.”

Obama’s “change” promises a continued path towards world government
Candidates from both parties will bring globalist programs

Daniel Taylor | July 25, 2008

Barack Obama’s July 24th speech in Berlin brought to light the Democratic Presidential candidates’ globalist views, mirroring those of the Council on Foreign Relations and other globalist think tanks. Obama’s praise of the European Union, calls for the “tearing down” of walls between nations and religions, and finally for world unity against climate change and terrorism reveal that an Obama Presidency will not bring change, but rather a continued erosion of national sovereignty and steps closer to world government.

Obama’s speech stated in part:

“That is why the greatest danger of all is to allow new walls to divide us from one another. The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand. The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down.”

…

“Yes, there have been differences between America and Europe. No doubt, there will be differences in the future. But the burdens of global citizenship continue to bind us together. A change of leadership in Washington will not lift this burden. In this new century, Americans and Europeans alike will be required to do more — not less. Partnership and cooperation among nations is not a choice; it is the one way, the only way, to protect our common security and advance our common humanity.”

…

“The terrorists of September 11th plotted in Hamburg and trained in Kandahar and Karachi before killing thousands from all over the globe on American soil.

As we speak, cars in Boston and factories in Beijing are melting the ice caps in the Arctic, shrinking coastlines in the Atlantic, and bringing drought to farms from Kansas to Kenya.

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In this new world, such dangerous currents have swept along faster than our efforts to contain them. That is why we cannot afford to be divided. No one nation, no matter how large or powerful, can defeat such challenges alone. None of us can deny these threats, or escape responsibility in meeting them. Yet, in the absence of Soviet tanks and a terrible wall, it has become easy to forget this truth. And if we’re honest with each other, we know that sometimes, on both sides of the Atlantic, we have drifted apart, and forgotten our shared destiny.”

Barack Obama’s remarks mirror those of Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, who stated that the problems of climate change and terrorism would require a surrender of national sovereignty and ultimately the formation of a world government. “Some governments are prepared to give up elements of sovereignty to address the threat of global climate change,” stated Haass. “The goal should be to redefine sovereignty for the era of globalization, to find a balance between a world of fully sovereign states and an international system of either world government or anarchy.”

Obama is not the only presidential candidate with globalist ideals. John McCain’s proposed League of Democracies and support of North American integration is one example. Hillary Clinton’s open support for world government is another.

Obama’s promise of “change” will bring no such thing. A continuation of globalist policy towards world government and weakened national sovereignty will undoubtedly be pursued.

1) The whole "War on Terror" is based on two contradictory arguments, in you will: One, which we might call the "idealistic" approach, which envisions the U.S. as a benevolent parent, or maybe shepherd (to use Christian-ese), which wants nothing more than to reach out and help those who are chafing under the strain of tyranny, and to help those people live under democratic rule that works with other nations and respects the rule of law. The second, though-- interestingly enough-- is a perfect contradiction of the first. I'll call it the "cowboy" approach, and it goes something like this: "They've attacked us! Smoke 'em out! Fight 'em over there so we don't have to fight 'em here! Fuck the Geneva Conventions and other constraining U.S. laws: they are antiquated systems that don't work in real life when you're fighting cold-blooded killers, so we're going to respond in kind, international regulations be damned!"

I often see both lines of reasoning used in the same editorials and books: I am reading "Why We Fight" by Bill Bennett, and he uses both-- seemingly unaware that you can't break and uphold the rule of law at the same time. 99% of the world's population outside America and Israel see this, but apparently most Americans don't.

2) It's (sadly) interesting that many of the strongest proponents of the "War on Terror" are also strong proponents of the idea of universal Truth, as opposed to relativism. I say this is interesting because, as previously mentioned, the whole war is based on a fundamental contradiction (that we're spreading democracy and deposing those who flout the Rule of Law, but are not ourselves bound to these frameworks if they get in our way). This leads me to believe that the proponents of the "War on Terror" believe in absolute Truth only in theory, but not in practice (or, at least, not in relationship to America and its allies.) 

3) Those shouting the loudest about how "we've got to win, no matter what the cost" are usually the ones who are not directly bearing any of the cost. Sure, some of them are military personnel, but many of them are just Average Joe's who do not have to endure any hardship-- much less death in the family or destruction of their home, like many Iraqis face-- because of this war. 

It just strikes me that, of course, the "sacrifices" of this war are "reasonable" if only other people-- Arabs, mostly, who live half a world away-- are making them; therefore, the only people with the right to judge whether the "sacrifice" was worth it are those directly making the sacrifices. Ask the 20-year-old American soldier whose leg was blown off. Ask the Iraqi family that lost their home to a bomb. Ask the Iraqi girl whose father and brothers were hauled off in a nighttime raid because of suspected "terrorism", or the mother whose baby had birth defects because of White Phosphorous.

This is pretty strong language! It smells as if it has been officially released. Combined with Pakistans continued refusal to allow US/NATO operations on its soil. It is the talk of a country cornered and ready for war. Boluchistan is mentioned, and part of which is also in Iran. This can only push Pakistan into Iran's arms.

Are their designs to return Baluchistan to its former borders (see maps at end)?? - Oh dear!

No one accuses Israel lightly.

From The Times of India:

LAHORE: Indian and Israeli intelligence agencies have ganged up to stir trouble in Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, Pakistan's intelligence agencies have alleged.

The agencies, in a report to the government quoted by Online news agency, have asked it to take "ample measures" to combat terrorism allegedly linked to Indian diplomatic missions in Afghanistan and Indian and Israeli spy outfits.

"Intelligence agencies have warned the government that Indian and Israeli missions along the Pak-Afghan border are involved in terrorist activities," the news agency said quoting reliable sources.

It added: "Certain evidence also indicates that Israeli and Indian missions are behind the recent acts of terrorism in Balochistan."

The obvious reference was to a terrible bomb blast in a mosque in the Balochistan capital Quetta this month that killed dozens of people and led some Pakistani officials to suspect an "Indian hand".

Online quoted "sources" as telling the government that India's Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and Israeli's Mossad intelligence agency were hand in glove against Pakistan.

"The sources revealed that RAW, Mossad and Khad (the former Afghan secret service) have regrouped after 23 years and are planning to launch terrorist activities in Pakistan," it said.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/102714.cms

H/T http://www.whatreallyhappened.com

Map from: http://www.pakistanthinktank.org/default.php/p/articles/pk/1124

Baluchistan 1860 map from:

http://www.pakistanthinktank.org/default.php/p/articles/pk/1124

Massive Brzezinski Control Of Obama
The real power behind the throne-to-be...

Eric Walberg | July 23, 2008

It is hard to sort through the hype and heat of Obamania, but one thing is clear: who's pulling the strings, argues Eric Walberg

As the United States election race enters the final stretch, Barack Obama as the candidate promising change is revealing his true colours, much to the despair of anyone actually expecting any change. His recent call to declare Jerusalem the undivided capital of Israel, his denial of Palestinians' right of return, and his support for a Bantustan Palestinian "state" which poses no threat to Israel show how completely he has caved in to the Zionist establishment on that issue.

As President George W Bush calls for early reductions in combat troops in Iraq, Obama's position on Iraq - a vow to bring troops home within 16 months, excepting a "residual force" - looks less and less of a defining moment in his foreign policy. Whatever happens to troop levels, there is no explicit talk of overriding the plans for 14 permanent bases.

Obama is toeing the line in Afghanistan, too. As NATO casualties continue to mount, surpassing monthly Iraqi causalities as of June this year, he is proposing - now seconded by McCain - that the United States shift up to 15,000 more troops there from Iraq. Just prior to his trip to Afghanistan, he wrote in a New York Times Op Ed, "We need more troops, more helicopters, better intelligence- gathering and more nonmilitary assistance to accomplish the mission there." Please, will someone show me the silver lining in an Obama victory in November?

But then none of the above should come as any surprise to those familiar with his chief promoter and foreign policy adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who, along with current (and likely future) Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, has already entered history as helping "suck the Soviets into a Vietnamese quagmire". These are the words of President Jimmy Carter's Under-Secretary of Defense Walter Slocumbe in March 1979, eight months before the Soviets were successfully "sucked in", when Gates was CIA chief. The changing of the guard, come November, will change nothing. US foreign policy has a logic which transcends who sleeps in the White House.

What's especially ghoulish about all this is that there are five Brzezinski offspring who are all onboard the Obama wagon: Mark (director of Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council under President Bill Clinton, and one of the prime movers of the 2004 color revolution in Ukraine), Ian (currently the US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and NATO affairs and a backer of Kosovan independence, NATO expansion into Ukraine and Georgia and US ABM missiles in Poland), Mika (political commentator on MSNBC whose interview with Michele Obama contributed to the general media Obamania) and finally, Matthew (a friend of Ilyas Akhmadov, "foreign minister" and US envoy of the Chechen opposition).

Brzezinski's brand of anti-Russian, anti-Muslim geopolitics will dominate a future Obama administration. In Second Chance: Three Presidents and the Crisis of American Superpower, published last year, he lays out his New World Order agenda without so much as a blush. Apparently, there is a global political awakening going on, the goal of which is "dignity". Not economic development, not the alleviation of poverty, not national sovereignty against the IMF and World Bank. Just plain old dignity, though Zbig's brand of dignity is the kind attained through secession, balkanisation, and the creation of weak statelets for each ethnic minority subservient to the US. Think: Kosovo and - if he has his way - Chechenia. Neo- Wilsonian demagogy in the service not of peace but of US world domination, encirclement of Russia and control of the Arab world.

Zbig said in endorsing Obama: "What makes Obama attractive to me is that he understands that we live in a very different world where we have to relate to a variety of cultures and peoples." Obama's alleged global approach and trans-ethnic, trans-racial allure are right out of Zbig's university textbook, or rather Second Chance, which will be the manual for the Obama campaign and presidency.

Obama is literally a second chance for Brzezinski: having destroyed the Soviet Union and shattered the Warsaw Pact, he now wants to dismember the Russian Federation itself and put the finishing touches on Afghanistan as an impregnable US military base against China, Russia... the list is endless. Perhaps Zbig is dreaming of restoring Greater Poland circa 1600 - from the Black Sea to the Baltic, all controlled by petty szlachta aristocrats like... the Brzezinskis?

The Economist blog put it best: "A new brain for Barack Obama! It's 78 years old and it still works perfectly. It belongs to Zbigniew Brzezinski, the peppery ex-national security adviser to Jimmy Carter."

The messianic idealism of the Obama campaign has not been seen since the days of another Brzezinski creation - Jimmy Carter, who made him national security adviser with disastrous results. Brzezinski's anti- Russian obsession back in 1976 prompted him to foment the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, which he touted as the greatest single bulwark against Soviet communism. Tarpley argues that Brzezinski was even a prime behind-the-scenes mover in the overthrow of the Shah of Iran and installing Ayatollah Khomeini in power in Tehran. Brzezinski cared less about the Middle East and its oil than he did about the need for a centre from which Islamic fundamentalism of the most retrograde type could penetrate the soft southern underbelly of the USSR. For Brzezinski, the space between the southern frontier of the Soviet and the Indian Ocean littoral became an "arc of crisis", and we have his handiwork to thank for the horrors taking place there to this day.

The 1980 Carter Doctrine - that the US was determined to dominate the Persian Gulf - is at the root of the first Gulf War, of the present Iraq war, and of the possible war on Iran. Brzezinski's grandiose schemes of world transformation caused a renewal of the Cold War and gave birth to Al-Qaeda, and without Soviet restraint the results could easily have been far more tragic than they turned out to be. By 1980, disillusionment with Carter led to the nightmare of the Reagan regime. But this was of little concern to Brzezinski - a mere blip on his radar screen.

In 2008, we have an obscure Illinois senator, a neophyte with no legislative achievements to speak of, but with a raft of utopian promises, including solving the race problem once and for all. Recession, unemployment and an alarming rise in poverty are of no consequence; a golden age is at hand thanks to his magnetic personality. Since he knows nothing of foreign policy, these matters will be competently managed by the Brzezinski cabal.

But there seems to be one slight hitch. Despite Obama's slavish pro- Israeli genuflections of late, he is still not trusted by the Jewish lobby. Quite possibly because they know who the power behind the throne-to-be is, and they can't stomach him, nor he them. Addressing the AIPAC crew in an interview with The Daily Telegraph, he said, "They operate not by arguing but by slandering, vilifying, demonising. They very promptly wheel out anti-Semitism. There is an element of paranoia in this inclination to view any serious attempt at a compromised peace as somehow directed against Israel."

But then Brzezinski was a key player in Carter's 1978 Camp David Accords, much loathed by the Zionists as giving up Sinai in exchange for a cold peace with Egypt. Brzezinski is definitely not a hardcore Zionist, though he's happy to allow the destruction of Palestine. Perhaps he is, under his suave exterior, still the quintessential Polish anti-Semite, with a vision of the New World Order without Israel at the centre.

If he can keep up the momentum, however, he may be able to outflank the Zionists in Washington and bringing his horse first past the finish line. They are on the defensive these days, what with spy trials, even J Street Project, a Jewish lobby group that - gasp - dares to criticise Israel. Is this, then, the silver lining in an Obama victory?

Ba've browsed settled table radio stations pro a Spanish comment as far as the matches, simply on gasconading relatively.

The Mother of All Messes

Paul Craig Roberts | July 23, 2008

Republicans are sending around the Internet a photo of a cute little boy whose T-shirt reads: "The mess in my pants is nothing compared to the mess Democrats will make of this country if they win Nov. 2nd."

One can only wonder at the insouciance of this message. Are Republicans unaware of the amazing mess the Bush regime has made? It is impossible to imagine a bigger mess. Republicans have us at war in two countries as a result of Republican lies and deceptions, and we might be in two more wars – Iran and Pakistan – by November. We have alienated the entire Muslim world and most of the rest.

The dollar has lost 60% of its value against the euro, and the once mighty dollar is losing its reserve currency role.

The Republicans’ policies have driven up the price of both oil and gold by 400%.

Inflation is in double digits. Employment is falling.

The Republican economy in the 21st century has been unable to create net new jobs for Americans except for low-wage domestic services such as waitresses, bartenders, retail clerks and hospital orderlies. Republican deregulation brought about fraud in mortgage lending and dangerous financial instruments which have collapsed the housing market, leaving a million or more homeowners facing foreclosure. The financial system is in disarray and might collapse from insolvency. The trade and budget deficits have exploded. The US trade deficit is larger than the combined trade deficits of every deficit country in the world.

The US can no longer finance its wars or its own government and relies on foreign loans to function day to day. To pay for its consumption, the US sells its existing assets – companies, real estate, toll roads, whatever it can offer – to foreigners.

Republicans have run roughshod over the US Constitution, Congress, the courts and civil liberties. Republicans have made it perfectly clear that they believe that our civil liberties make us unsafe – precisely the opposite view of our Founding Fathers. Yet, Republicans regard themselves as the Patriotic Party.

The Republicans have violated the Nuremberg prohibitions against war crimes, and they have violated the Geneva Conventions against torture and abuse of prisoners. Republican disregard for human rights ranks with that of history’s great tyrants.

The Republicans have put in place the foundation for a police state. I am confident that the Democrats, too, will make a mess. But can they beat this record?

We must get the Republicans totally out of power, or we will have no country left for the Democrats to mess up.