US Army: Media a threat parallel to al-Qaeda and drug cartels

May. 03, 2007 - 2:17 PM

Is This What the Army Thinks of Us?

It looks like it's official: the United States Army thinks that American reporters are a threat to national security. Thanks to some great sleuthing by Wired's "Danger Room" blogger Noah Shachtman, the Army's new operational security guidelines (OPSEC) hit the Web in a big way yesterday, and the implications they have for reporters -- who are grouped in with drug cartels and Al Qaeda as security threats to be beaten back -- are staggering.

Make no mistake, this is a very big deal, and every American citizen, not just reporters and soldiers, needs to understand the implications of the Army's strict new policy, because it directly affects how citizens receive information about their armed forces: information that it has every right to get.

Shachtman reproduces a slide from the new "OPSEC in the Blogosphere," document, which lists and ranks "Categories of Threat." Under "traditional domestic threats" we find hackers and militia groups, while "non-traditional" threats include drug cartels, and -- yes -- the media. Just to put that into some perspective, the foreign "non-traditional threats" are listed as warlords, and Al Qaeda. In other words, the Army has figuratively and literally put the media in the same box as Al Qaeda, warlords, and drug cartels.

While snake oil salesmen like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh would surely rank the American press up there with Bin Laden and his homicidal ilk, for the Army to do so is shocking, displaying a deep ignorance on the part of at least some segments of the uniformed military over just what the media's role in a democracy is, while sending the unambiguous message to soldiers and DoD employees that reporters are to be treated as enemies.

Under the new rules, all Army personnel and DoD contractors are told to keep an eye on reporters and anyone seen speaking to the press, and that they should "consider handling attempts by unauthorized personnel to solicit critical information or sensitive information as a Subversion and Espionage Directed Against the U.S. Army (SAEDA) incident."

Steven Aftergood, senior research analyst at the Federation of American Scientists and director of the federation's Project on Government Secrecy, raises some red flags about the new regulations, writing that the "sensitive" information as defined in the manual includes "not just vital details of military operations and technologies but also documents marked "For Official Use Only" (FOUO) that may be exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act." In other words, as he says, "it follows that inquisitive members of the press or the public who actively pursue such FOUO records may be deemed enemies of the United States." [Emphasis ours]

Of course, Aftergood is only speculating, but his speculation falls well within the boundaries of what the Subversion and Espionage Directed Against the U.S. Army (SAEDA) manual describes as actionable offenses.

Under these guidelines, reporters digging for information about military projects, funding requests, new acquisition strategies, or other military-related stories could be blown in by an antsy DoD worker or soldier who doesn't like the tone of questioning. That's a pretty dangerous road to begin to travel for any country, and for the U.S. it's simply unacceptable. We have no problem with the Army, or the Pentagon, keeping various things secret. In fact, we expect them to. But a reporter's job is to dig for truth, and when the military begins throwing up roadblocks like these, everyone loses.

As a creepy little addendum to this whole sorry affair, we'll quote what Major Ray Ceralde, the author of the new rules, told Shachtman in an interview yesterday: "A person doesn't have to be in the military or government to support OPSEC...As a Nation, we are in this fight together, and all Americans are encouraged to practice OPSEC."

In other words, it's open season on curious reporters.

Paul McLeary

Gareth Porter explains the the massive loopholes in the Democrat’s bogus withdrawal plan

Journalist and historian Gareth Porter explains the the massive loopholes in the Democrat’s bogus withdrawal plan, the false premise of both parties that al Qaeda in Iraq would be anything but doomed if the U.S. left, the question of neocon malevolence versus incompetence, the possibility of war with Iran, whether talks with that country could just be used as a further excuse for war when they “fail,” the first Democratic presidential debate blues and the common assumption that if the U.S. did leave, that the civil war will get worse.

Antiwar Radio: Gareth Porter [41:00m]: Hide Player | Play in Popup | Download

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Israel and al-Qaeda Want the US to Stay in Iraq

The last thing the Middle East's main players want is US troops to leave Iraq

Across the region, ordinary people want the Americans out. But from Israel to al-Qaida, political groups and states have other ideas

Hussein Agha
Wednesday April 25, 2007
The Guardian

Overt political debate in the Middle East is hostile to the American occupation of Iraq and dominated by calls for it to end sooner rather than later. No less a figure than King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, arguably the United States' closest Arab ally, has declared the occupation of Iraq "illegal" and "illegitimate". Real intentions, however, are different. States and local political groups might not admit it - because of public opinion - but they do not want to see the back of the Americans. Not yet.

For this there is a simple reason: while the US can no longer successfully manipulate regional actors to carry out its plans, regional actors have learned to use the US presence to promote their own objectives. Quietly and against the deeply held wishes of their populations, they have managed to keep the Americans engaged with the hope of some elusive victory.

The so-called axis of moderate Arab states - comprising Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan - dreads an early US withdrawal. First, because it would be widely interpreted as an American defeat, which would weaken these pro-American regimes while both energising and radicalising their populations.

Second, if the US leaves, the emergence of a Shia regime in Iraq - in itself an offensive prospect to them - would only be a matter of time. Facing Arab antipathy, this regime would be likely to look eastward and forge close ties with its Iranian co-religionists. In the view of most Arabs, this would present a formidable challenge, setting in motion a series of dangerous events - an Iranian-Iraqi alliance; political and material support from Arab countries being offered to disgruntled Iraqi Sunni groups; retaliation by Iraqi forces; and the threat of broader regional involvement.

Third, a US departure risks triggering Iraq's partition. As some Arabs see it, the occupation is what holds the country together. So long as coalition forces are deployed, a full-blown breakup can be avoided.

In contrast, with the Americans gone, the odds of partition would increase dramatically, presenting a threat to the integrity and security of regional states. Exacerbating dormant, and in some cases not so dormant, secessionist tendencies would be one concern. Perhaps more worrying would be the ensuing challenge to the legitimacy of the fundamental tenets of nationhood, state, and national borders.

Paradoxically, the competing axis of so-called rogue states made up of Syria and Iran also wants the US to stay. So long as America remains mired in Iraq's quicksand, they think, it will be difficult for it to embark on a similar adventure nearby. This is true not only politically - the quagmire standing as a stark reminder of the invasion's failure - but also militarily: US capabilities will remain stretched for as long as the occupation continues.

Moreover, American forces in Iraq present relatively soft targets for retaliation in case Iran or Syria is attacked. In short, whether or not Syria and Iran are correct in their calculations, the occupation of Iraq is seen as the most effective insurance policy against a possible US attack against them.

For Turkey, America's presence ensures that the national aspirations of Iraq's Kurds will not metamorphose into a fully fledged independent state, a strict red line for Ankara, which has its own irredentist Kurdish problem. By containing Kurdish ambitions, the US diminishes the probability of a costly and uncertain Turkish military campaign to thwart them. Nor is Turkey attracted to the prospect of an Iraqi Shia state allied to Iran and tolerant of Kurdish aspirations - an outcome it hopes the occupation will make less likely.

For Israel too, an American withdrawal could spell disaster. Already, nothing has dented Israeli deterrence more than America's performance in Iraq - an inspiration to Israel's Arab foes that even the mightiest can be brought to heel. An early withdrawal, coming in the wake of last summer's Lebanon war, could put Israel in a dangerous position, handing a victory to Iran - the latest putative threat to Israel's existence - and providing a boost to Syria which may be considering military options to recover the Golan Heights.

There are risks for the smaller Gulf states too. With their large Shia communities and heavy dependence on American protection, they would be threatened by an early US departure from Iraq. In Bahrain, home to an unhappy Shia majority, the fallout could be imminent.

Inside Iraq, this is a period of consolidation for most political groups. They are building up their political and military capabilities, cultivating and forging alliances, clarifying political objectives and preparing for impending challenges. It is not the moment for all-out confrontation. No group has the confidence or capacity decisively to confront rivals within its own community or across communal lines. Equally, no party is genuinely interested in a serious process of national reconciliation when they feel they can improve their position later on. A continued American presence is consistent with both concerns - it can keep clashes manageable and be used to postpone the need for serious political engagement.

Shias in government would like the US to stay long enough for them to tighten their grip on the levers of state power and build a loyal military. Those Shias who are not in power would like them to stay long enough to avoid a premature showdown with their rivals. Militant Shia groups can simultaneously blame the occupation forces for their community's plight and attack them to mobilise further support. Pro-Iranian Shias, meanwhile, retaliate against anti-Iranian US moves with attacks on Americans in Iraq.

Al-Qaida and its affiliates arguably benefit most from the occupation. They established themselves, brought in recruits, sustained operations against the Americans and expanded. The last thing they want is for the Americans to leave and deny them targets and motivation for new members. Other Sunni armed groups need the Americans for similar reasons and for protection against Shias. For Sunni politicians, the occupation prevents a total Shia takeover of state institutions and helps increase their influence.

Of all ethnic groups, the Kurds have made best use of the Americans. Protected by the US from their powerful and ruthless historical foes, Arab and Turk, they have built quasi-independent institutions and prospered amid relative security. They have no reason to want this situation to end.

In common with neighbouring states, Iraqi Shias, Sunnis and Kurds are united in being able to use the Americans' presence to pursue separate and often conflicting political agendas. The grand disconnect in the region is between the political sentiments of ordinary people, which are overwhelmingly for an end to occupation, and the political calculations of leaders, which emphasise the benefits of using the Americans and consequently of extending their stay - at least for the time being.

In this grim picture, the Americans appear the least sure and most confused. With unattainable objectives, wobbly plans, changing tactics, shifting alliances and ever-increasing casualties, it is not clear any longer what they want or how they are going to achieve it. By setting themselves up to be manipulated, they give credence to an old Arab saying: the magic has taken over the magician.

· Hussein Agha is a senior associate member of St Antony's College, Oxford
comment@guardian.co.uk

On whose side is Al-Qaeda?

Tension between the national resistance in Iraq and Al-Qaeda mounts as the latter makes a bid for power monopoly, writes Lamis Andoni

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Al-Qaeda's Islamic State of Iraq has signalled the beginning of an offensive that sets it apart from Iraqi resistance groups in a brazen and violent struggle not only against foreign occupation but also and mainly for power in Iraq.

If Al-Qaeda was responsible, as it claims, for the suicide bombing at the Iraqi parliament, the attack represents its most daring act yet aimed at asserting a monopoly of representation of Iraqis. The bombing, as much as it shattered the American security plan, signals that Al-Qaeda has embarked on an irreversible path of wrestling for power even before a withdrawal of American troops from Iraq.

While various Iraqi resistance groups have always differed with Al-Qaeda's tactics and actions, trying at the same time to avoid an all-out confrontation with the transnational organisation, the so- called Islamic State of Iraq is declaring war on all who do not conform to its ambitions.

The struggle between resistance groups and Al-Qaeda rose to surface when the Islamic Army, a prominent resistance group, issued a strong-worded statement condemning Al-Qaeda's actions and calling on Osama Bin Laden to personally intervene to rein-in Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

The assassination of 1920 Revolution Brigades leader Harith Dhaher Khamis Al-Dhari, nephew of the influential Muslim Scholars Association leader Sheikh Harith Al-Dhari, on 27 March, reportedly in an Al-Qaeda ambush, sent shockwaves across resistance groups, especially that it followed the killing of at least 30 fighters from the Islamic Army.

"Al-Qaeda has actually killed a number of Mujahideen brothers, 30 of them so far, and also attacked other resistance groups, clashing with the 1920 Revolution Brigades, battles with which break out from time to time until now in Abu Ghraib. Most recently Al-Qaeda killed one of its field commanders, Brother Harith Dhaher Al-Dhari," the statement said.

"Al-Qaeda has also killed members of the Army of the Mujahideen resistance organisation and members of the Ansar Al-Sunna resistance group. Al-Qaeda has also threatened the Islamic Front," the statement added.

Differences between Al-Qaeda's Islamic State in Iraq and the resistance have been simmering ever since Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia declared an Islamic state with Abu Omar Baghdadi named "prince of the faithful". That dramatic move, replete with an armed parade, was witnessed with alarm across the Sunni political community and the resistance alike. While staking its claim over the leadership and future of Iraq, it was not expected that Al-Qaeda would move so quickly into eliminating its opponents and demanding total allegiance.

The Islamic Army and other resistance groups, even those with close coordinating ties with Al-Qaeda, refuse the logic of being subordinated to the Islamic State of Iraq's self-proclaimed leader. Sources close to both the Islamic Army and the 1920 Revolution Brigades say it is now obvious that Al-Qaeda is vying for unrivaled control over the resistance.

Differences over the agenda and leadership of the resistance are not new, but the death of Abu Musaab Al-Zarqawi brought such differences to the fore.

"We were hoping that the resistance could continue coordinating with Al-Qaeda in the battlefield and postpone any conflict until later," a source close to the 1920 Revolution Brigades recalls. The declaration of the Islamic State and ensuing threats to resistance fighters and leaders made it clear that Al-Qaeda was looking neither for coordination nor a coalition. "Al-Qaeda saw no room for other agendas but one -- its own," the source said.

Following the assassination of Al-Dhari, the 1920 Revolution Brigade and the Dhari tribe tried to contain the incident, as the resistance "should not be dragged into dangerous confrontations with Al-Qaeda", according to at least two sources close to the resistance. Al-Qaeda's Islamic State of Iraq, however, was deterred neither by alarmed reactions nor attempts to contact its leadership in Iraq. The Islamic Army broke its silence once Al-Qaeda's attacks against Sunni civilians, mosques, imams, and even "demanding money" from families in return for protection, became the rule, not the exception.

"The Sunni population has thus become a 'legitimate target' for them, in particular the wealthy, who are told that either they must pay what Al-Qaeda wants or they will be killed, and they strive to kill anyone who criticises them or differs with them and exposes their errors, regarding this as a simple matter," the Islamic Army said.

In an interview with Al-Jazeera, Islamic Army spokesman Ibrahim Al-Shammari said that while at the beginning -- at the onset of the US occupation -- the Islamic Army maintained field coordination with Al-Qaeda, differences had grown to the point where it was impossible "to tolerate Al-Qaeda actions, which have been very damaging to the resistance".

Different resistance groups, especially Islamic- based groups, had initially accepted Al-Qaeda's role, which they saw as impressively efficient and painful for occupation forces. Salafi-based groups, like Ansar Al-Sunna, and some members of the other groups, embraced Al-Qaeda and hailed "the Muslim Mujahideen who came to liberate Iraq." Al-Qaeda was welcomed into the fold of the Majles Al-Shura (Consultative Council) that includes seven factions, though its attempts to control the council or impose its agenda were repeatedly rejected.

The resistance, according to different sources close to the movement, saw the advantage of Al-Qaeda's military attacks against the occupation forces but felt the damage done by its sectarian rhetoric and deadly assaults against Iraqi civilians.

A debate has been ongoing about targeting the Iraqi army and police, and Iraqis involved in the American-sponsored political process. In his Al-Jazeera interview, Al-Shammari rejected considering the Iraqi army, the police and Iraqis in parliament as legitimate targets. The same position is held by the 1920 Revolution Brigades and other Sunni leaders.

Now, as dramatically demonstrated in the parliament bombing, Al-Qaeda's Islamic State in Iraq is going out on its own. Reports from Baghdad also suggest an increasing number of attacks by Al-Qaeda on resistance groups, its leaders and districts that don't submit to its control.

While Al-Qaeda's influence has decreased in most of Al-Anbar, following the establishment of the Anbar Salvation Council and local/tribal police forces "to combat terrorism", it exerts total control in certain enclaves such as Al-Karma, a small town near Fallujah, by directly administering schools, hospitals and all movement.

"People and the resistance are finding themselves targets of the occupation and government forces on the one hand, and Al-Qaeda's Islamic State in Iraq on the other," an Iraqi journalist told Al-Ahram Weekly.

According to informed sources close to at least two resistance groups, the Iraqi resistance, though engaging Al-Qaeda when forced to, is still seeking to avoid an all-out confrontation, even if Al-Qaeda seeks it. Nonetheless, the situation seems to be escalating on a daily basis, with many Iraqi nationalist activists who support the resistance fearing that "occupation forces are benefiting the most from Al-Qaeda's actions."

* The writer is a US-based journalist.

© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved

Al-Ahram Weekly Online

‘AL QAEDA’: A FIGMENT OF THE FEAR- AND WAR-MONGERING PROPAGANDISTS IMAGINATION

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Yesterday the Australian Prime Minister John Howard and his band of fearmongering lunatics warned Australians gathering at Gallipoli for ANZAC Day to be aware of a ‘terrorist threat’. In the UK Guardian today it is reported that the ‘head of Scotland Yard's counterterrorism command said yesterday that al-Qaida had survived the six-year long "war on terror" launched by President George Bush and Tony Blair, and its central leadership had retained the ability to order devastating attacks on Britain.’ As well as Gallipoli that is. And in Iraq, where it seems the Iraqi franchise of ‘al Qaeda’ has claimed responsibility for the deaths yesterday of nine US troops.

So good is the ‘al Qaeda’ franchise business that even the Israelis have tried to set up an ‘al Qaeda’ shop in Palestine. Unfortunately the locals soon discovered that the business wasn’t genuine (apparently Mossad hadn’t paid bin Laden the franchise fee) so the business was quickly shut down.

Of course al Qaeda exists, or at least existed, (indeed, it was set up with the assistance of the CIA as part of their covert war against the Soviets in Afghanistan before the Taliban took over there) but it doesn’t exist in the way that the western neocon-dominated press would have us believe. Despite the continued references to ‘al Qaeda’ everyday as we are told that they are responsible for every conceivable atrocity that occurs on our planet, there has not been any evidence whatsoever that ‘al Qaeda’ per se has ever been responsible for anything beyond the borders of Afghanistan and the remoter parts of Pakistan.

The western propagandists have presented to the world a picture of an ‘al Qaeda’ as being a massive and extremely well disciplined international organisation that has branches everywhere. Yet nowhere is there any prima facie evidence to suggest that they even exist, let alone in such an organised and disciplined way. As the piece in today’s UK Guardian demonstrates, we are expected to simply believe what we are told with the total lack of evidence being conveniently explained away as; ‘for security reasons we can’t divulge the source’.

In Iraq the US and their allies are currently busy trying to wedge the Sunni and Shi’ite factions by blaming ‘al Qaeda’ for the friction between the two groupings. This is nothing new; they’ve tried it before, but now they are putting more effort into their blame game because they see it as away of polarising the rest of Islam in the Middle East and beyond thus diverting attention away from the Israelis and their efforts to subdue Palestine, Hamas and Hizbollah but, at the same time, demonising further an Iran that has a predominately Shiite population (as against the rest of the Islamic world which is around 80% Sunni).

The problem for the US, Israel, and their western allies, is that all this propaganda is for consumption in the west only. The Middle Eastern peoples, Sunni or Shia, are very much aware that their relationships with each other are quite secure and have been for decades. For them the myth of ‘al Qaeda’ remains just that – a myth, and that the struggles that exist between various Sunni and Shiite groups in Iraq are mainly a combination of political and criminal secular differences in a post-Saddam lawless era and that such violence, as bloody as it often is, is contained within Iraq and has nothing to do with the battles that Islamic peoples and Arabs generally are fighting against Israeli right-wing Zionism in Palestine and US hegemonic colonialism in the Middle East and Central Asia.

‘Al Qaeda’ remains, as it has since the US decided that they were to blame for the events of 9/11, a myth that exists solely to perpetuate fear and the illusion that there is always an enemy to justify the continued ‘Global War on Terrorism’.

posted by Damian Lataan at 12:50 PM

US training Sunni extremists to attack Hizbullah; operations to be attributed to Al-Qaeda

Thursday, April 19, 2007

(with an added note)

Issam Naaman is a Lebanese lawyer and writer, former Minister of Telecommunications under one of the governments led by Salim al-Hoss, and a member of a small political group that considers itself a third alternative beween the Hariri-led establishment, and the Hizbullah-led opposition. He wrote on April 18 in Al-Quds al-Arabi about information gleaned from the recent Pelosi delegation, and other US delegations at about the same time, mostly by a friend of his who is a think-tank type and didn't want his name used.

His main points were that Bush seems to be stymied in his desire to attack Iran, both by the political opposition of the Democrats, and the popular revulsion in the US against further military adventures that would be seen as at the expense of things like health insurance and the US standard of living. (By contrast, Bush policy on Palestine will be unchanged, because in the case of Palestine there is no pressure for change from Congress, in fact the Democrats outdo the Republicans in their support for Israel). As a "substitute" for not being able to strike Iran, the Bush administration plans an escalation in Lebanon. And here he mentions two specific points: (1) Tom Lantos said they are convinced Hizbullah is weak and this is the time to step up efforts to disarm it. (2) An airport in northern Lebanon will be used as a base for pressuring Syria, and also as a place for training of groups opposed to Hizbullah and opposed to anti-Abbas elements in Palestine. Then there was this:

It was learned from influential members of the US delegations that the Washington special[-forces] apparatus has begun assembling, arming and training members of Islamic extremist groups to undertake assaults on Hizbullah, in the framework of the conflict that it [the Bush administration] plans between the Sunni and the Shiite population, in districts where the two groups are contiguous. And it will be arranged to camouflage the agents in this by attributing the attacks to AlQaeda.

The writer's conclusion is that these exchanges with the American visitors confirmed that the Bush administration will not allow there to be any compromise in the dispute between the Hizbullah-led opposition and the Hariri administration over power-sharing, new elections and so on. Rather, the US administration will be working hard to promote confrontation, as part of its region-wide policy of fostering Sunni-Shiite conflict. In this context, the writer doesn't seem to regard the covert sponsorship of fake-AlQaeda US agents to be anything but one more ingredient in the overall plan.

This planned use by the Bush administration of Sunni extremists to stir the pot in Lebanon was discussed at length by New Yorker article called "The Redirection" last month, eliciting only an eerie silence from the policy elite. Judging from this Naaman piece, it would appear the scheme is pretty much a bipartisan open secret, which raises the question why no criticism from the Democrats. Or maybe answers the question.

ADDED NOTE: See also this post, which fills out the picture a little more.

A convenient untruth

Attributing the bombings in Algeria to al-Qaida obscures the fact that this is a continuation of a civil war, not a new front in the 'war on terror'.

April 12, 2007 2:30 PM

George Joffe

Algeria's premier, Abdelaziz Belkhadem, was still outraged by the apparent attack on his life at his offices in central Algiers on April 11 when he appeared on al-Arabiya television that evening. A suicide bomber had rammed a truck into the guard post outside his offices before it exploded, in the first attack in the centre of the country's capital for many years. Al-Qaida, he told his region-wide Arab audience, was responsible for "this cowardly attack, this rejection of reconciliation".

It is, of course, a very convenient explanation, for it means that Algeria, in common with the western world and its North African and Middle Eastern neigbours, is plagued by a transnational existential threat, to which the only meaningful response is force. And, of course, Algeria should know, for it only recently ended a decade-long civil war which broke out after the Algerian army aborted legislative elections in 1991, causing at least 200,000 deaths, because of its fears that an Islamist party would win them.

Yet, that experience highlights the dilemma as to whether the bombings were really part of the global terrorist threat or whether they reflected, as the civil war had done, more localised, purely Algerian problems. One of the major reasons for the civil war was the widespread view in Algeria that, over the previous 30 years, the country's government had betrayed its revolution and the bloody war with France between 1954 and 1962.

The Islamist movement, the Front Islamique du Salut (FIS), was popularly seen as a more legitimate inheritor of the revolutionary mantle than the country's official single political party, the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN), and that was why it was set to win the elections - to the detriment of the vested interests of the elite. That was also the reason why the civil war was fought with such viciousness.

The group that was responsible for the bombing of the premier's office last Wednesday, the Groupe Salafiste de Predication et du Combat (GSPC), which renamed itself al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb last September, had emerged out of the conflict in 1997 and has continued the fight ever since, with the same goals, in northern Algeria and in the Sahara. Although it is now reduced to a hard core, estimated at between 800 and 1,000 fighters, it continues its campaign.

But the campaign is local, as it always was, against the Algerian security services and the Algerian state, which it seeks to replace with an Islamic caliphate. Even though it now claims the mantle of al-Qaida - something which Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaida's number two, confirmed after the group's second attempt to gain such an endorsement last September (the first was made in 2001) - its real agenda has not changed. Even though western intelligence agencies claim that it organises training camps in the Sahara, for which there is little evidence, its real target is still the government in Algiers.

Even the timing of the attack, which was accompanied by another car-bomb attack on a police station in the eastern suburbs of the capital, was determined by local events. It did not occur as part of a coordinated campaign with the suicide bombings in Casablanca the previous day; the Moroccan authorities are satisfied that there was no "external connection". Instead, it was a response to a determined effort by the Algerian army to destroy its redoubts in Kabylia, to the east of the capital, an operation that has been going on for the last two weeks, and to a spate of trials in absentia of its leaders because of their refusal to accept an amnesty offered by the government last year, which had been intended to produce "national reconciliation".

The attack also fits into a pattern of recent attacks by the group, starting last October, which have involved police stations and foreign personnel working for companies in Algeria. Their purpose is to demonstrate that, despite its best efforts, the Algerian government has not been able to subdue the group and that it can continue its fight. Worse still, yesterday's bombing demonstrates that not even the capital is safe, despite the government's claims.

And where does al-Qaida fit into the picture? The suggestion that it acts as a transnational organisation directing violence in Algeria according to a centrally-conceived plan is simply untrue. Events there do not fit into the alleged global threat to western states accused of interfering in the Muslim world. They still address the group's proclaimed national agenda of removing un-Islamic, tyrannical and corrupt government.

However, as a rhetoric of rejection, as an idea, an ideology of resistance, accessible through the internet and by word-of-mouth, al-Qaida's global vision of confronting the west to create an idealised Islamic state instead has become a commonplace throughout the Muslim world and even in Europe itself - a fitting counterpart to the "global war on terror" that has, in large part, helped to foster it and now becomes its bedfellow.

George Joffe is a research fellow at the Centre of International Studies, Cambridge University. Also a visiting professor of geography at Kings College, London University, he specialises in the Middle East and North Africa. George is currently engaged in a project studying connections between migrant communities and transnational violence in Europe.

Jundullah: Iran-Contra Crimes Revisited

Friday April 06th 2007, 9:39 am

It is part Contra, part “al-Qaeda,” and part Taliban. “A Pakistani tribal militant group responsible for a series of deadly guerrilla raids inside Iran has been secretly encouraged and advised by American officials since 2005,” reports ABC News. “The group, called Jundullah, is made up of members of the Baluchi tribe and operates out of the Baluchistan province in Pakistan, just across the border from Iran…. U.S. officials say the U.S. relationship with Jundullah is arranged so that the U.S. provides no funding to the group, which would require an official presidential order or ‘finding’ as well as congressional oversight.”

Congressionally approved funding is not an issue, as Jundullah’s leader, Abd el Malik Regi, is not only “part Taliban, part Sunni activist,” but a drug smuggler as well—a not uncommon profession for “activists” working for the CIA and Pakistan’s ISI. “Regi is essentially commanding a force of several hundred guerrilla fighters that stage attacks across the border into Iran on Iranian military officers, Iranian intelligence officers, kidnapping them, executing them on camera,” explained Alexis Debat, a senior fellow on counterterrorism at the Nixon Center and an ABC News consultant.

Not that you’ll hear a peep about this in the corporate media, now so obsessed with the Iranian release of British “hostages,” that is to say admitted military intelligence operatives working for the Royal Marines.

Jundullah members captured in Iran after blowing up a bus with members of the Revolutionary Guard onboard back in February “said they had been trained for the mission at a secret location in Pakistan.” Back in 2003, the CIA established “secret bases” in Pakistan, ostensibly to hunt for the dead Osama bin Laden and his dour pranksters, that is to say patsies and mental deficients.

Of course, this is but the latest effort in a long and sordid relationship between the CIA and ISI, stretching back into the 1980s when “the ISI’s Covert Action Division received training in the US and many covert action experts of the CIA were attached to the ISI to guide it in its operations against the Soviet troops by using the Afghan Mujahideen, Islamic fundamentalists of Pakistan and Arab volunteers,” according to B. Raman, writing for the South Asia Analysis Group. As we know, select members of the “Islamic fundamentalists,” particularly the “Arab volunteers,” later became “al-Qaeda,” the CIA spawned terrorist group named after a Mujahideen database.

“Some former CIA officers say the [Jundullah] arrangement is reminiscent of how the U.S. government used proxy armies, funded by other countries including Saudi Arabia, to destabilize the government of Nicaragua in the 1980s,” ABC continues.

In the Contra operation, drug smuggling played a central role, as it did in Afghanistan. “In 1984, stories began to emerge about a secret Nicaraguan Contra network run by a Lieutenant Colonel in the basement of the White House and financed by the importation of large amounts of cocaine,” write Dennis Bernstein and Julie Light. “It was soon revealed that the name of the Lieutenant Colonel was Oliver North and that there was in fact a secret illegal network that was pieced together by the Central Intelligence Agency,” a fact “actively suppressed by Democrats and Republicans alike” during the Iran-Contra hearings. The late Gary Webb, writing for the San Jose Mercury News, documented in “a three-part well-documented story … how the Contra network created, supervised, and funded by the CIA, had run for 10 years a cocaine supply line by transshipping from Central America through San Francisco and down to Los Angeles thousands of kilos of cocaine,” in essence creating the crack cocaine epidemic.

As noted in Volume II of the CIA’s Inspector General’s report, complicity in drug smuggling and the crack cocaine epidemic runs deep—either by direct participation or facilitating a cover-up—including such insiders as Richard Armitage, Frank Carlucci, Hillary and Bill Clinton, Michael Ledeen, Ed Meese, Adm. John Poindexter, Richard Secord, Casper Weinberger, and James Woolsey.

“For criminal organizations, participating in covert operations offers much more than money. They may get a voice in selecting the new government. They may get a government that owes them for help in coming to power. They may be able to use their connections with the United States government to enhance their political power at home,” explains Jack Blum, the former Chief Counsel to John Kerry’s Subcommittee on Narcotics and Terrorism in 1996 Senate Hearings, a subcommittee chaired by Arlen “Magic Bullet” Specter. “I think that if people in the government of the United States make a secret decision to sacrifice some portion of the American population in the form of … deliberately exposing them to drugs,” Blum added.

Naturally, sacrificing “some portion of the American population” is no big deal for the U.S. government—although we are told, most recently during the hysterical reaction to the comments of Rosie O’Donnell, that our government would never do such things, never mind ample evidence, from CIA biological weapons experiments conducted upon unwitting citizens to the plans detailed in Operation Northwoods to “sacrifice some portion of the American population” through terrorism and thus hopefully undermine the government of Fidel Castro. As well, history is littered with instances of the U.S. government sacrificing hundreds of thousands of U.S. soldiers—to say nothing of millions of victims in targeted countries—in “military adventures” stretching back to the Spanish-American War in 1898 and continuing to this day in Iraq, Afghanistan and, if the neocons have their way, Iran.

In effect, the undeclared “secret” war against Iran, well underway as the “story” on Jundullah reveals, is simply the latest episode of this long and sordid history.

It should come as no surprise the effort against Iran is a pet project of Dick Cheney. “ABC cited Pakistani government sources as saying the secret campaign against Iran was on the agenda when Vice President Dick Cheney met with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in February,” notes a post on the Indian-Muslims website.

Finally, so enamored are the neocons with Cheney, they want to run him as president in 2008, as none of the Republican selectees currently dominating the field are “hawkish” enough, that is to say they apparently lack the required degree of murderous psychosis.

“Mr. Cheney has virtues as a candidate in his own right. He has foreign policy experience by virtue of having served as defense secretary,” an op-ed appearing in the New York Sun assures us. “His wife, Lynne, would be an asset to the ticket in her own right,” as her connections to the military-snoop-industrial complex and the neocon “think tanks” run deep. Dick’s unflagging desire to expand the neocon “war” into Iran, as evidenced by his working closely with the dictator Musharraf to spawn yet another CIA created terrorist group, according to the neocon organ the New York Sun, is a “contrast to the carping over tactics that has infected some of the Republican field and to the fever among the Democrats for cutting off funds for our GIs and sounding a retreat.”

Dick Cheney is the neocon choice for president, never mind he may well keel over dead from a heart attack before the “election” come 2008. In that case, the neocons will need settle for one of the other “contenders,” none of them as blood-thirsty and sadistic as Dick.

No Saddam 'al-Qaeda'Link: Full Pentagon report

PDF

Land of the free, home of the War on Terrorism

April 6, 2007

by William Blum

"They told us this was one of the world's worst terrorists, and he got the sentence of a drunken driver," said Ben Wizner, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, referring to David Hicks, a 31-year-old Australian who in a plea bargain with a US military court will serve nine months in prison, largely in Australia. That's after five years at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba without being charged with a crime, without a trial, without a conviction. Under the deal, Hicks agreed not to talk to reporters for one year (a slap in the face of free speech), to forever waive any profit from telling his story (a slap -- mon Dieu! -- in the face of free enterprise), to submit to US interrogation and testify at future US trials or international tribunals (an open invitation to the US government to hound the young man for the rest of his life), to renounce any claims of mistreatment or unlawful detention (a requirement which would be unconstitutional in a civilian US court).

"If the United States were not ashamed of its conduct, it wouldn't hide behind a gag order," said Wizner.)[1]

Like so many other "terrorists" held by the United States in recent years, Hicks had been "sold" to the American military for a bounty offered by the US, a phenomenon repeated frequently in Afghanistan and Pakistan. US officials had to know that once they offered payments to a very poor area to turn in bodies that almost anyone was fair game.

Other "terrorists" have been turned in as reprisals for all sorts of personal hatreds and feuds.

Many others -- abroad and in the United States -- have been incarcerated by the United States simply for working for, or merely contributing money to, charitable organizations with alleged or real ties to a "terrorist organization", as determined by a list kept by the State Department, a list conspicuously political.

It was recently disclosed that an Iraqi resident of Britain is being released from Guantánamo after four years. His crime? He refused to work as an informer for the CIA and MI5, the British security service. His business partner is still being held in Guantánamo, for the same crime.[2]

Finally, there are those many other poor souls who have been picked up simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. "Most of these guys weren't fighting. They were running," General Martin Lucenti, former deputy commander of Guantánamo, has pointed out.[3]

Thousands of people thrown into hell on earth for no earthly good reason. The world media has been overflowing with their individual tales of horror and sadness for five very long years. Said Guantánamo's former commander, General Jay Hood: "Sometimes we just didn't get the right folks."[4] Not that the torture they were put through would be justified if they were in fact "the right folks".

Hicks was taken into custody in Afghanistan in 2001. He was a convert to Islam and like many others from many countries had gone to Afghanistan for religious reasons, had wound up on the side of the Taliban in the civil war that had been going on since the early 1990s, and had received military training at a Taliban camp. The United States has insisted on calling such camps "terrorist training camps", or "anti-American terrorist training camps", or "al-Qaeda terrorist training camps". Almost every individual or group not in love with US foreign policy, which Washington wants to stigmatize, is charged with being associated with, or being a member of, al Qaeda, as if there's a precise and meaningful distinction between people retaliating against American imperialism while being a member of al Qaeda and retaliating against American imperialism while NOT being a member of al Qaeda; as if al Qaeda gives out membership cards to fit into your wallet, as if there are chapters of al Qaeda that put out a weekly newsletter and hold a potluck on the first Monday of each month.

It should be noted that for nearly half a century much of southern Florida has been one big training camp for anti-Castro terrorists. None of their groups -- which have carried out many hundreds of serious terrorist acts in the US as well as abroad, including bombing a passenger airplane in flight -- are on the State Department list. Nor were the Contras of Nicaragua in the 1980s, heavily supported by the United States, about whom former CIA Director Stansfield Turner testified: "I believe it is irrefutable that a number of the Contras' actions have to be characterized as terrorism, as State-supported terrorism."[5] The same applies to groups in Kosovo and Bosnia, with close ties to al Qaeda, including Osama bin Laden, in the recent past, but which have allied themselves with Washington's agenda in the former Yugoslavia since the 1990s. Now we learn of US support for a Pakistani group, called Jundullah and led by a Taliban, which has taken responsibility for the recent kidnapings and deaths and of more than a dozen Iranian soldiers and officials in cross-border attacks.[6] Do not hold your breath waiting for the name Jundallah to appear on the State Department list of terrorist organizations; nor any of the several other ethnic militias being supported by the CIA to carry out terrorist bombing and assassination attacks in Iran.[7]

The same political selectivity applies to many of the groups which are on the list, particularly those opposed to American or Israeli policies.

Amid growing pressure from their home countries and international human rights advocates, scores of Guantánamo detainees have been quietly repatriated in the past three years. Now, a new analysis by lawyers who have represented detainees at this 21st century Devil's Island says this policy undermines Washington's own claims about the threat posed by many of the prison camp's residents. The report, based on US government case files for Saudi detainees sent home over the past three years, shows inmates being systematically freed from custody within weeks of their return. In half the cases studied, the detainees had been turned over to US forces by Pakistani police or troops in return for financial rewards. Many others were accused of terrorism connections in part because their Arab nicknames matched those found in a computer database of al-Qaeda members, documents show. In December, a survey by the Associated Press found that 84 percent of released detainees -- 205 out of 245 individuals whose cases could be tracked -- were set free after being released to the custody of their native countries.

"There are certainly bad people in Guantánamo Bay, but there are also other cases where it's hard to understand why the people are still there," said Anant Raut, co-author of the report, who has visited the detention camp three times. "We were struggling to find some rationality, something to comfort us that it wasn't just random. But we didn't find it."

The report states that many of the US attempts to link the detainees to terrorism groups were based on evidence the authors describe as circumstantial and "highly questionable", such as the travel routes the detainees had followed in flying commercially from one Middle East country to another. American officials have associated certain travel routes with al Qaeda, when in fact, says the report, the routes "involve ordinary connecting flights in major international airports." With regard to accusations based on similar names, the report states: "This accusation appears to be based upon little more than similarities in the transliterations of a detainee's name and a name found on one of the hard drives."

Raut said he was most struck by the high percentage of Saudi detainees who had been captured and turned over by Pakistani forces. In effect, he said, for at least half of the group in the study, the United States "had no first-hand knowledge of their activities" in Afghanistan before their capture and imprisonment.[8]

When Michael Scheuer, former CIA officer who headed the Agency's Osama bin Laden unit, was told that the largest group in Guantánamo came from custody in Pakistan, he said: "We absolutely got the wrong people."[9]

Never mind. They were all treated equally. All thrown into solitary confinement. Shackled, blindfolded, excruciating physical contortions for long periods, denied medicine. Sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation. And two dozen other methods of torture which American officials do not call torture. (If you torture these officials, they might admit that it "torture lite".)

"The idea is to build an antiterrorist global environment," a senior American defense official said in 2003, "so that in 20 to 30 years, terrorism will be like slave-trading, completely discredited."[10]

When will the dropping of bombs on innocent civilians by the United States, and invading and occupying their country, without their country attacking or threatening the US, become completely discredited? When will the use of depleted uranium and cluster bombs and CIA torture renditions become things that even men like George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld will be too embarrassed to defend?

Australian/British journalist John Pilger has noted that in George Orwell's 1984 "three slogans dominate society: war is peace, freedom is slavery and ignorance is strength. Today's slogan, war on terrorism, also reverses meaning. The war is terrorism."


Throwing the earth on the mercy of the market

Al Gore appeared before a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on global warming on March 21. The star of "An Inconvenient Truth" was told by Cong. Joe Barton of Texas: "You're not just off a little -- you're totally wrong." In the afternoon Gore testified before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, during which the former vice president was told by Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma: "You've been so extreme in some of your expressions that you're losing some of your own people."[11]

These members of Congress know the facts of economic life in the United States. Fighting global warming is a threat to the principal human generator of it -- corporations -- who avail themselves of the best congress members money can buy to keep government regulations as weak as can be.

Does Al Gore know the same facts of American economic life? Of course, but you would have a hard time discerning that from his film. It's as cowardly in dealing with the corporations as Gore was in fighting the theft of the 2000 election. In the film's hour and a half, the words "corporations" or "profit" are not heard. The closest he comes to ascribing a link between the rape of the environment and the incessant corporate drive to optimize profits is a single passing mention of American automakers' reluctance to increase car gas mileage. He discusses the link between tobacco and lung cancer, as an example of how we have to "connect the dots" on environmental issues, with no mention of the tobacco corporations or their gross and deliberate deception of the American people. He states at another point that we must choose the environment over the economy, without any elucidation at all. Otherwise, the film's message is that it's up to the individual to change his habits, to campaign for renewable energy, and to write his congress member about this or that. In summary, the basic problem, he tells us, is that we're lacking "political will".

It would be most interesting if Al Gore were the president to see how tough he'd get with the corporations, which every day, around the clock, are faced with choices: one method of operation available being the least harmful to the environment, another method being the least harmful to the bottom line. Of course, Gore was vice-president for eight years and was in a fantastic and enviable position to pressure the corporations to mend their ways and Congress to enact tougher regulations; as well as to educate the public on more than their own bad habits. But what exactly did he do? Can any readers enlighten me as to what extent the man used his position and his power then in a manner consistent with the image and the word of his new film?

But could Gore be elected without corporate money? And how much of that money would reach his pocket if he advocated (choke, gasp!) free government-paid public transportation -- rail, bus, ferry, etc.? That would give birth to a breathtaking -- or rather, breath enhancing -- reduction in automobile pollution; easily paid for by ceasing America's imperialist wars.


Microsoft and the National Security Agency

I have long felt that the American media's gravest shortcoming is its errors of omission, rather than its errors of commission. It's what they leave out that distorts the news more than any factual errors or out-and-out lies. In January the Washington Post reported that Microsoft had announced that its new operating system, Vista, was being brought to us with the assistance of the National Security Agency. The NSA said it helped to protect the operating system from worms, Trojan horses and other insidious computer attackers. "Our intention is to help everyone with security," said the NSA's chief of vulnerability analysis and operations group. The spy agency, which provided its service free, said it was Microsoft's idea to acknowledge NSA's role, although the software giant declined to be specific about NSA's contributions to Vista.[12]

What the Post -- and most likely the entirety of mainstream American media -- do not remind us of is what came out in 1999 and 2000, although it's all over the Internet.

In September 1999, leading European investigative reporter Duncan Campbell revealed that NSA had arranged with Microsoft to insert special "keys" into Windows operating systems, beginning with Windows 95. An American computer scientist, Andrew Fernandez of Cryptonym in North Carolina, had disassembled parts of the Windows instruction code and found the smoking gun -- Microsoft's developers had failed to remove the debugging symbols used to test this software before they released it. Inside the code were the labels for two keys. One was called "KEY". The other was called "NSAKEY". Fernandez presented his finding at a conference at which some Windows developers were also in attendance. The developers did not deny that the NSA key was built into their software, but they refused to talk about what the key did, or why it had been put there without users' knowledge. Fernandez says that NSA's "back door" in the world's most commonly used operating system makes it "orders of magnitude easier for the US government to access your computer."[13]

In February 2000, it was disclosed that the Strategic Affairs Delegation (DAS), the intelligence arm of the French Defense Ministry, had prepared a report in 1999 which also asserted that NSA had helped to install secret programs in Microsoft software. According to the DAS report, "it would seem that the creation of Microsoft was largely supported, not least financially, by the NSA, and that IBM was made to accept the [Microsoft] MS-DOS operating system by the same administration." The report stated that there had been a "strong suspicion of a lack of security fed by insistent rumours about the existence of spy programmes on Microsoft, and by the presence of NSA personnel in Bill Gates' development teams." Microsoft categorically denied all the charges and the French Defense Ministry said that it did not necessarily stand by the report, which was written by "outside experts".[14]

In case the above disturbs your image of Bill Gates and his buddies as a bunch of long-haired, liberal, peacenik computer geeks, and the company as one of the non-military-oriented halfway decent corporations, the DAS report states that the Pentagon at the time was Microsoft's biggest client in the world. The Israeli military has also been an important client. In 2002, the company erected enormous billboards in Israel which bore the Microsoft logo under the text "From the depth of our heart -- thanks to The Israeli Defense Forces", with the Israeli national flag in the background.[15]


The Myth of the Good War
Readers of this report will be aware that one of the points I try very hard to convey is that the reason so many Americans support US atrocities abroad is that they're convinced that no matter how bad things may look, the government means well. American leaders may make mistakes, they may blunder, they may lie, they may even on the odd occasion cause more harm than good, but they do mean well. Their intentions are honorable. Of that most Americans are certain. And one of the foundation stones for this edifice of patriotic faith is the Second World War, an historical saga that all Americans are taught about from childhood on. We all know what its real name is: "The Good War".

Which leads me to recommend a book, "The Myth of the Good War", by Jacques Pauwels, published in 2002. It's very well done, well argued and documented, an easy read. I particularly like the sections dealing with the closing months of the European campaign, during which the United States and Great Britain contemplated stabbing their Soviet ally in the back with maneuvers like a separate peace with Germany, using German troops to fight the Russians, and sabotaging legal attempts by various Communist Parties and other elements of the European left to share in (highly earned) political power after the war. This last piece of sabotage was of course very effectively realized. Stalin learned enough about these schemes to at least partially explain his post-war suspicious manner toward his "allies". In the West we called it "paranoia".[16]


NOTES

[1] Seattle Times, March 31, 2007

[2] Washington Post, March 30, 2007, p.11

[3] Financial Times (London), Oct 4, 2004

[4] Wall Street Journal, January 26, 2005

[5] Testimony before the House Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs, April 16, 1985

[6] ABC News, April 3, 2007

[7] Sunday Telegraph (London), February 25, 2007

[8] Washington Post, March 18, 2007

[9] Richard Ackland, "Innocence ignored at Guantanamo", Sydney Morning Herald, February 24, 2006.

[10] New York Times, January 17, 2003, p.10

[11] Washington Post, March 22, 2007, p.2

[12] Washington Post, January 9, 2007. p.D1

[13] Duncan Campbell's article of September 3, 1999 can be found on the website of TechWeb: http://www.techweb.com/wire/29110640

[14] Agence France Presse, February 18 and 21, 2000

[15] To see one of the billboards: www.inminds.co.uk/boycott-news-0022.html

[16] http://www.alys.be/pauwels/2publi_the_myth.htm
Available in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Dutch editions


William Blum is the author of:
Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2
Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower
West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir
Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire
Portions of the books can be read, and signed copies purchased, at
Previous Anti-Empire Reports can be read at this website.

From Doug Feith's lips to your ears

April 05, 2007

From Doug Feith's lips to your ears.

Finally, a declassified version of the briefing slides (pdf) used by Feith's shop to illustrate the "mature, symbiotic relationship" between Iraq and Al Qaeda has been made publicly available, courtesy of Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI). The briefing was given to senior White House officials in the prelude to the Iraq War.

Levin also released a declassified version (pdf) of the Defense Department's Inspector General's report on Feith, which found that Feith's doings "inappropriate but legal."

Highlights soon.

Update: Highlights here.

-- Paul Kiel

Leave over Iraq to al-Qaida: Bogus argument

Playing the Course

Jeff Huber | March 19, 2007

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. --Voltaire

The peculiarly insane brand of neoconservative pro-war rhetoric continues to resonate. Last week, Representative C.W. Bill Young (R-FL) said, "Nobody wants our troops out of Iraq more than I do, but we can't afford to turn over Iraq to al-Qaida."

The Sunni organization al-Qaeda is not going to take over Shiite dominated Iraq. If Young honestly thinks it can, he's an utter dullard. It's more likely that Young was the Bush liegeman chosen to introduce the latest Rovewellian talking point.

Straying the Course

From the beginning, The administration and its echo chamberlains have sold their woebegone war in Iraq with a fabric of glittering generalities, appeals to emotion, bandwagons, sand bagging, blame shifting, straw man attacks, faulty main assumptions, false analogies, and the rest of the propaganda arsenal. They coaxed us into this war by making visions of mushroom clouds dance in our heads, and they've been playing Rovewellian mind games with us ever since.

Their most enduring trick has been the "fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here" mantra. In recent months "fighting them over there" has morphed into "If we withdraw, they will follow us here." Pish. How are they going to get here--hide in our troops' luggage? Swim? Wind surf? Jump?

Despite what Bush the younger tells us, the oceans do, in fact, still protect us. Nobody has an army large enough to invade and occupy the United States, and they certainly don't have a navy or air force capable of transporting a force that size across the Atlantic or Pacific. Even if they did, we could sink them and/or shoot them down before they got halfway here.

Yes, terrorists might still sneak through our borders and ports in drips and drabs like the 9/11 perpetrators did, but nothing we're doing militarily in the Middle East is preventing that from happening. That's Homeland Security's job, and if Homeland Security can't keep terrorists from infiltrating our country, why does it even exist?

Young Mr. Bush exhorts us to show "resolve" in the Middle East. But the kind of resolve we're showing in the Middle East is the kind of resolve it takes to throw yourself in front of a moving bus, and then lie there while the bus continues to roll back and forth over you.

In January, Senator Joe Lieberman (?-CT) said on Meet the Press that "We all want to find the right exit strategy. But my own sense of history tells me that in war, ultimately, there are two exit strategies. One is called victory; the other is called defeat."

My three dogs have a better sense of history than Lieberman does. Wars, especially modern American wars, have seldom been decisive. World War I ended in an armistice, the conditions of which laid the groundwork for World War II. World War II concluded with the formal surrenders of Germany and Japan, but that only led to the Cold War and a series of dirty little third-world proxy wars that lasted for half a century.

One pro-war neoconservative pundit recently compared Representative Jack Murtha (D-PA) to Lee Harvey Oswald. He said that Murtha and Oswald formed a small club of individuals who deserved to be classified as "ex-Marines." This pundit is not a Coulter-class luminary in the neoconservative galaxy. He is a distinguished dean and professor at one of our most distinguished graduate level war colleges who consistently indulges in this kind of vituperative through the Big Brother Broadcast megaphone. With people like him in key positions of upper level of military academia, it's little wonder our national security brain trust is so bankrupt.

We hear from voices on the right that a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq will create conditions that could lead to a regional war, but the fact is that U.S. presence in Iraq has created a regional war. Conflict, at one level or another, rages from the Horn of Africa to Pakistan, and our presence in Iraq is fueling it, not containing it.

The Bush war hawks keep serving up grape flavored hallucinogen shooters, and their non-cognitive supporters keep slamming them down. Meanwhile, a pack of dune farmers armed with tinker toys continue to make the "best-trained, best-equipped" armed force in history look like it couldn't find its oasis with a map and a flashlight.

It's so difficult for me to watch our chicken hawk leaders pour more of our magnificent troops into a war they're not designed to fight in pursuit of a "victory" that cannot be defined, and justify their policies and strategies with arguments they have to know are medicine show hokum, and blame their failures on the CIA, the news media, Catholics who voted for John Kerry, and whatever other scapegoat is handy.

It breaks my heart.

Sound Off...What do you think? Join the discussion.

About Jeff Huber

Freelance writer Jeff Huber was operations officer of a naval air wing and an aircraft carrier, and he commanded an E-2C Hawkeye aircraft squadron. His analyses of military and foreign policy affairs have appeared in Proceedings, The Navy, Jane's Fighting Ships, and other print periodicals. Some of his essays have been required student reading at the U.S. Naval War College, where he received a master's degree in national security studies in 1995. Jeff is a contributing editor with ePluribus Media. His home website is Pen and Sword.

The Confession Backfired

March 17, 2007

By Paul Craig Roberts

The first confession released by the Bush regime's Military Tribunals – that of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed – has discredited the entire process. Writing in Jurist, Northwestern University law professor Anthony D'Amato likens Mohammed's confession to those that emerged in Stalin's show trials of Bolshevik leaders in the 1930s.

That was my own immediate thought. I remember speaking years ago with Soviet dissident Valdimir Bukovsky about the behavior of Soviet dissidents under torture. He replied that people pressed for names under torture would try to remember the names of war dead and people who had passed away. Those who retained enough of their wits under torture would confess to an unbelievable array of crimes in an effort to alert the public to the falsity of the entire process.

That is what Mohammed did. We know he was tortured, because his response to the obligatory question about his treatment during his years of detention is redacted. We also know that he was tortured, because otherwise there is no point for the US Justice (sic) Dept. memos giving the green light to torture or for the Military Commissions Act, which permits torture and death sentences based on confessions extracted by torture.

Mohammed's confession of crimes and plots is so vast that Katherine Shrader of the Associated Press reports that the Americans who extracted Mohammed's confession do not believe it either. It is exaggerated, say Mohammed's tormentors, and must be taken with a grain of salt.

In other words, the US torture crew, reveling in their success, played into Mohammed's hands. Pride goes before a fall, as the saying goes.

Mohammed's confession admits to 31 planned and actual attacks all over the world, including blowing up the Panama Canal and assassinating presidents Carter and Clinton and the Pope. Having taken responsibility for the whole ball of wax along with everything else that he could imagine, he was the entire show. No other terrorists needed.

Reading responses of BBC listeners to Mohammed's confession reveals that the rest of the world is either laughing at the US government for being so stupid as to think that anyone anywhere would believe the confession or damning the Bush regime for being like the Gestapo and KGB.

Humorists are having a field day with the confession: "'I'm a very dangerous mastermind,' said Mohammed, who confessed to the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby, the Brink's robbery, St. Valentine's Day Massacre, and the Lincoln and McKinley assassinations. Mohammed also accepted responsibility for spreading hay fever and cold sores around the world and for rained out picnics."

If there was anything remaining of the Bush regime not already discredited, Mohammed's confession removed any reputation left.

The most important part of the Mohammed story is yet to make the headlines. Despite having held and tortured hundreds of detainees for years in Gitmo, and we don't know how many more in secret prisons around the world, the US government has come up with only 14 "high value detainees."

In other words, the government has nothing on 99 percent of the detainees who allegedly are so dangerous and wicked that they must be kept in detention without charges, access to attorneys and contact with families.

And little wonder. The vast majority of detainees, alleged "enemy combatants," are not terrorists captured by the CIA and brave US troops. They are hapless persons who happened to be outside their tribal or home territories and were kidnapped by criminal gangs or warlords who profited greatly at the expense of the naive Americans who offered bounties for "terrorists."

The US government does not care that innocent people have been ensnared, because the US government desperately needs both to prove that there are vast numbers of terrorists and to demonstrate its proficiency in protecting Americans by capturing terrorists. Moreover, the US government needs "dangerous suspects" that it can use to keep Americans in a state of supine fearfulness and as a front behind which to undermine constitutional protections and the Bill of Rights.

The Bush-Cheney Regime succeeded in its evil plot, only to throw it all away by releasing the ridiculous confession by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Will Bush's totalitarian Military Tribunal now execute Mohammed on the basis of his confession extracted by torture, or would this be seen everywhere on earth as nothing but an act of murder?

If Bush can't have Mohammed murdered, the US government will have to shut Mohammed away where he cannot talk and tell his tale. The US government will have to replicate Orwell's memory hole by destroying Mohammed's mind with mind-altering drugs and abuse.

It is to such depths that George Bush and Dick Cheney have lowered America.

Probe of 'Al-Qaeda' Leader's Handling Sought

Probe of Al-Qaeda Leader's Handling Sought
Senators Urge Inquiry After Mohammed Alleges Abuse

By Dafna Linzer and Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, March 17, 2007; A15

Two senators who observed last week's closed military proceedings against al-Qaeda leader Khalid Sheik Mohammed called for an investigation into allegations that the accused planner of the Sept. 11 attacks was physically abused while in CIA custody.

Mohammed told the tribunal last Saturday that he had been mistreated during three years in CIA custody before his transfer to Guantanamo Bay, and he submitted a written description of the alleged abuse. The military panel immediately classified the submission and redacted from transcripts details of Mohammed's treatment in the CIA's secret prison program.

According to one portion of the transcript made public earlier this week, however, Mohammed told the panel of three unnamed military officers that his children had been held for four months and abused during his incarceration.

"Allegations of prisoner mistreatment must be taken seriously and properly investigated. To do otherwise would reflect poorly on our nation," Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), a committee member, said in a statement issued yesterday.

The military officer who presided over the hearing promised to forward the allegations for investigation, and a U.S. official said that they had been sent to the CIA's inspector general.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said yesterday that his deputy, Gordon England, was present at Mohammed's hearing last Saturday at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Gates, who was returning from Central Command headquarters in Florida yesterday, told reporters on his flight that he had read the redacted transcript of Mohammed's hearing and had spoken to England about it. Gates said England described Mohammed as calm, giving laconic answers to the tribunal before speaking politely of the terrorist acts he claims to have committed.

"There was no doubt in [England's] mind that this guy meant every word he said," Gates said. "It really was a fresh reminder of the kind of threat that we're facing." Gates said he did not know whether prosecutors would seek the death penalty should the case go to a military commission, but he said, "One would hope so."

The CIA maintains that it does not torture prisoners but has refused to describe what acts it considers to be torture and has not divulged the interrogation techniques it uses against detainees.

Levin and Graham did not challenge the secret nature of Mohammed's hearing or the classification of his allegations of abuse. But they, along with Gates and others, said they were convinced that he was telling the truth during the hearing.

Mohammed claimed responsibility for more than 30 terrorism plots, including the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, whom Mohammed said he beheaded.

"It was apparent to us," the senators wrote in their statement, that Mohammed "wanted to use the tribunal process to detail his role in 9/11 and many other terror plots and to record for history the part he has played in a war that he has unabashedly waged." Mohammed "views himself as a warrior, motivated by religious teachings, and seeks his place in history."

The two senators helped write legislation codifying the Combatant Status Review Tribunals. Yesterday they offered no new details on the content of the hearing but said they were impressed with "the professionalism and demeanor of the tribunal." Mohammed was denied an attorney for the hearing, which was called to establish whether he qualifies as an enemy combatant. Evidence was withheld from him, and the military panel rejected his request to call two witnesses -- also at Guantanamo -- to corroborate assertions that nearly half of the military's case against him is false.

"The true test of the CSRT process is not a case in which the detainee admits the allegations against him, it is a case in which the detainee disputes those allegations. Judicial review of the tribunals is ongoing," the two senators wrote. "We will continue to review the process and will explore possible ways to improve this process through Congressional action," they wrote.

True Confessions? The Amazing Tale of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed

JURIST Guest Columnist Anthony D'Amato of Northwestern University School of Law says the sweeping Guantanamo "confessions" of al Qaeda leader Khalid Shaikh Mohammed rival the scope of those made in the Stalinist purge trials of the 1930s, and should equally prompt us to question the legal process in which they were made...


Students of the Stalinist purges of the 1930s will recall the astounding confessions made in open court by the accused persons. They had been severely tortured over weeks and months. But they showed up in court without external marks of torture. With all apparent voluntariness, they admitted subverting the Five-Year Plans that would have provided the Soviet people with necessary food items. They sabotaged factories, making sure the production lines were inefficient. They managed to import inferior metals so that Soviet tanks and automobiles would fall apart after a few months’ use. They infiltrated the Soviet Army and through dint of their persuasiveness, convinced the foot soldier that it was absurd to risk his life defending a dictatorial government. In short these accused persons, briefly in court on their way to the firing squad, took responsibility for everything that had gone wrong for the past two decades in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

So why is it today that no one draws the connection between the Soviet purge trials and the confession of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed? Mohammed said that he had been tortured by his American captors. No one contradicted his assertion. Then he went on, with a straight and sincere face, to take responsibility for a long list of crimes recently perpetrated.

Mr. Mohammed personally decapitated “the head of the American Jew, Daniel Pearl, in the city of Karachi, Pakistan,” he testified. He must have been on an overnight flight from South Korea, where he personally identified targets “such as American military bases and a few night clubs frequented by American soldiers.” Perhaps it was on that flight that he planned the “Shoe Bomber Operation to down two American airplanes.”

The busy Mr. Mohammed planned, financed, surveyed, trained, and followed up the operations to destroy American military vessels and oil tankers in the Straits of Hormuz, the Straits of Gibralter, the Port of Singapore, and the Panama Canal. On a side trip to the Philippines, he masterminded the assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II.

What about the Big One, namely, the crash into the World Trade Center Towers on 9/11? Mr. Mohammed was responsible “from A to Z,” he said. He also was responsible for the earlier attack on the World Trade Center in 1993.

This person really got around; you’ve got to give him credit for that. Maybe he had a job as a chef aboard Air Force One; he didn’t say. But he did manage to get all the way to Bali, Indonesia, where he supervised the infamous nightclub bombing that killed many British and Australian nationals.

At least he was arrested before he managed to carry out a few of his plans, such as assassinating President Carter (Mohammed surveyed and financed this assassination plan), and blowing up Library Tower in California, the Sears Tower in Chicago, several suspension bridges in New York, Heathrow Airport in London, the Canary Wharf Building, New York Stock Exchange, the Plaza Bank in Washington State, and last but not least, the Empire State Building in New York City. It’s a good thing the latter was averted as it would have drained all the drama out of the remake of King Kong.

Anything else you want to say for yourself, Mr. Mohammed? Why yes, he replies. Don’t forget my responsibility for the Filka Island Operation in Kuwait that killed two American soldiers, the destruction of numerous nightclubs in Thailand, planning the destruction of buildings in the Israeli city of Elat by using Saudi airplanes, planning and financing for the destruction of American embassies in Indonesia, Australia, and Japan, the bombing of the hotel in Mombasa that is frequented by Jewish travelers, and planning, surveying and financing to hit several nuclear power plants in the United States. And . . .

O.K., Mr. Mohammed, just ask your lawyer to hand over the complete list. Do you have any explanations for the Court?

Yes, “not I’m making myself hero when I said I was responsible for this or that. If America they want to invade Iraq they will not send for Saddam roses or kisses, they send a bombardment. This is the best way if I want. I’m American enemies.”

It gives me a warm feeling that these proceedings took place on board U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, with the Review Tribunal made up of a Captain from the United States Navy, Lieutenant Colonels from the United States Air Force and Marine Corps, and a Gunnery Sergeant as Reporter (all names redacted). A confession before a tribunal is the best evidence of guilt, isn’t it? Whether it’s Guantanamo Bay or the Gulag Archipelago.


Anthony D.Amato is Leighton Professor of Law at Northwestern University, where he teaches international law and human rights.

Why KSM's Confession Rings False: Time

Thursday, Mar. 15, 2007

Why KSM's Confession Rings False

By Robert Baer

It's hard to tell what the Pentagon's objective really is in releasing the transcript of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's confession. It certainly suggests the Administration is trying to blame KSM for al-Qaeda terrorism, leading us to believe we've caught the master terrorist and that al-Qaeda, and especially the ever-elusive bin Laden, is no longer a threat to the U.S.

But there is a major flaw in that marketing strategy. On the face of it, KSM, as he is known inside the government, comes across as boasting, at times mentally unstable. It's also clear he is making things up. I'm told by people involved in the investigation that KSM was present during Wall Street Journal correspondent Danny Pearl's execution but was in fact not the person who killed him. There exists videotape footage of the execution that minimizes KSM's role. And if KSM did indeed exaggerate his role in the Pearl murder, it raises the question of just what else he has exaggerated, or outright fabricated.

Just as importantly, there is an absence of collateral evidence that would support KSM's story. KSM claims he was "responsible for the 9/11 operation from A-Z." Yet he has omitted details that would support his role. For instance, one of the more intriguing mysteries is who recruited and vetted the fifteen Saudi hijackers, the so-called "muscle." The well-founded suspicion is that Qaeda was running a cell inside the Kingdom that spotted these young men and forwarded them to al-Qaeda. KSM and al-Qaeda often appear bumbling, but they would never have accepted recruits they couldn't count on. KSM does not offer us an answer as to how this worked.

KSM has also not offered evidence of state support to al-Qaeda, though there is good evidence there was, even at a low level. KSM himself was harbored by a member of Qatar's royal family after he was indicted in the U.S. for the Bojinka plot — a plan to bomb twelve American airplanes over the Pacific. KSM and al-Qaeda also received aid from supporters in Pakistan, quite possibly from sympathizers in the Pakistani intelligence service. KSM provides no details that would suggest we are getting the full story from him.

Although he claims to have been al-Qaeda's foreign operations chief, he has offered no information about European networks. Today, dozens of investigations are going on in Great Britain surrounding the London tube bombings on July 7, 2005. Yet KSM apparently knew nothing about these networks or has not told his interrogators about them.

The fact is al-Qaeda is too smart to put all of its eggs in one basket. It has not and does not have a field commander, the role KSM has arrogated. It works on the basis of "weak links," mounting terrorist operations by bringing in people on an ad hoc basis, and immediately disbanding the group afterwards.

Until we hear more, the mystery of who KSM is and what he was responsible for is still a mystery.

Robert Baer, a former CIA field officer assigned to the Middle East, is the author of See No Evil and, most recently, the novel Blow the House Down

Portions of 9/11 Confession Patsy Relating to Torture in Custody Redacted

Mohammed 'confessed to 9/11, Pearl murder'

From correspondents in Washington

March 16, 2007 05:59am
Agence France-Presse

TOP al-Qaeda suspect Khalid Sheik Mohammed has confessed to plotting 31 terror attacks including September 11 and personally beheading US journalist Daniel Pearl, the Pentagon said overnight.

In a closed-door hearing before a panel of US military officers, the Pakistani national admitted to masterminding terror attacks and plots around the world, according to a partial transcript released by the Pentagon.

"I was responsible for the 9/11 operation, from A to Z," Mohammed said in a statement, read by a US military officer at the hearing held at the US camp for "war on terror" suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Overnight, the Pentagon confirmed that Mohammed also said he had murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, whose videotaped beheading shocked the world in 2002.

"I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew, Daniel Pearl, in the city of Karachi, Pakistan," Mohammed said in the statement read out at the hearing.

"For those who would like to confirm, there are pictures of me on the Internet holding his head," he said.

Mohammed's admission to taking Pearl's life was deleted from the transcript until the journalist's family had been notified, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said.

A suspected senior deputy to Osama bin Laden, Mohammed claimed responsibility for an array of other terrorist attacks, including the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing and the 2002 bombing of a nightclub in Bali, Indonesia, according to the transcript.

He also claimed to have devised attacks in Britain, Singapore and the Panama Canal, and had planned to kill the Pope and former US presidents.

The White House declined to comment on Mohammed's statements, saying it did not want to influence any legal proceedings.

After Mohammed's capture in 2003 he was held in secret CIA prisons until he was transferred to military custody.

Mohammed gave the military tribunal at Sunday's hearing a written statement on alleged abuse during his detention.

The lead officer at the hearing asked Mohammed if any statements he made to interrogators were "as the result of any treatment that you received" from his capture in 2003 up until his arrival in Guantanamo in September 2006.

"CIA peoples. Yes. At the beginning when they transferred me ..." The rest of the transcript was redacted.

Asked whether President George W. Bush considered Mohammed's confession to be credible, spokesman Tony Snow said: "We cannot respond because of concerns about command influence with an ongoing military commission"

Mohammed gave the tribunal a long, rambling justification for his actions as part of a holy war against the United States.

"If America they want to invade Iraq they will not send for Saddam roses or kisses. They send for a bombardment ... For sure I am American enemies," he said.

"But when you said I'm terrorist, I think it is deceiving peoples. Terrorists, enemy combatant. All these definitions as CIA you can make whatever you want."

Mohammed is considered the most important of the 14 prime suspects who will appear before the latest military panels at Guantanamo on their "enemy combatant" status after being transferred from CIA custody overseas.

"Enemy combatant" status would pave the way for a trial by military tribunal.

The treatment and prosecution of "war on terror" suspects has sparked criticism at home and abroad. None of the 14 has had access to a lawyer and are instead represented at the hearings by a military officer.

The Pentagon released redacted transcripts of Mohammed's hearing along with those of two other captured al-Qaeda operatives - Abu Faraj al-Libi and Ramzi bin Al-Shibh.

Mohammed told the hearing he was "not happy" about the 3000 victims of the 2001 attacks by al-Qaeda hijackers who brought down the World Trade Centre towers and slammed into the Pentagon.

"I feel sorry even. I don't like to kill children and the kids ... I don't like to kill people."

Mohammed set out a vast list of attacks and plots against US, British and Israeli targets, including a "second wave" of attacks on US landmarks including the Empire State Building, the Heathrow Airport and the New York Stock Exchange.

Former US presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter and Pope John Paul II were also assassination targets.