Tag: al-Qaeda

Anti-Capitalist Meetup: War Profiteers Ecstatic at Middle East Mess by Justina

In 1935, US General Smedley Butler detailed in his “War is a Racket” the World War I  racket he had served.  It is now much, much worse.

Vice-President Richard Cheney and his fellow Neo-Cons originally lit the barn fires with their factually unjustified invasion of Iraq in 2003.  Bush-Cheney then torched the secular, but Sunni sect based, ruling Baathist Party and applauded the decapitation of its brutal, but anti-al Qaeda leader, Saddam Hussein.  (Saddam himself had originally been put in place by the US CIA in a coup, but thereafter fell out of favor with the US government because he dared to assert exclusive control of Iraq’s oil industry.)

Up to his ouster, Saddam had successfully kept the radical jihadists out of Iraq, which even the US intelligence agencies have admitted:

“There was no al Qaeda-Iraq connection until the war; our invasion made it so. We have known this for nearly a decade, well before the murderous ISIS even appeared. In a September 2006 New York Times article headlined “Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terrorism Threat,” reporter Mark Mazetti informed readers of a classified National Intelligence Estimate representing the consensus view of the 16 disparate spy services inside government. Titled “Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States,” the analysis cited the Iraq war as a reason for the diffusion of jihad ideology: “The Iraq war has made the overall terrorism problem worse,’ said one American intelligence official.”

Now jihadis even more extreme than Al Qaeda, the ISIS, are an hour outside of Baghdad, threatening the capitol city and its Shia sect residents.  Its Sunni sect population, a minority in Baghdad, is seemingly terrified of the reaction of the Shiite majority as well as the blatantly brutal, although Sunni ISIS.  Likely everyone there is arming.  (The NRA must be delighted.)

Gun Control and the Hypocrisy of the War on (some) Terror

  What nation can intentionally target children for death and still expect the world to love us? Didn’t we used to denounce the Soviet Union for this stuff?

“In addition to looking for military-age males, it’s looking for children with potential hostile intent.”

 – Lt Col Marion Carrington, Marine Corp Times

 It sort of puts those school shooting deaths in perspective, doesn’t it? Our lack of respect for the lives of children overseas will eventually come home.

Truth, Justice and the American Way

The killing of Osama Bin Laden the late scion of a great Saudi family closely connected to the Saudi royals shows the exact condition of American culture. Bin Laden and the other people who were in the compound could have been arrested. I doubt, surprised as they were, they offered much resistance against heavily armed and armored troops. It will be interesting to hear if anyone in the propaganda media will wonder why these people were killed. Also, it is interesting that he was said to have been “buried at sea.” Of course no one will wonder–well did they actually kill Bin Laden? We have no proof he was killed. It is possible, for example, that Bin Laden had been dead for quite a while and the PR people figures it was time to rev up some blood-lust.

This sort of brings us full-circle to the question of what really happened on 9/11 and whether Bin Laden was ever really involved. I have, personally, seen no evidence of his involvement though clearly an organization called Al-qaida seems to have been involved. But who were these people? Where did they come from? I leave that to the reader to look into. Since I have some knowledge of how covert ops and politics (which is often full of all kinds of covert ops, false flag operations and so on) I know that evidence is important in these matters and the evidence for any of the governments assertions is just no there. And it seems to be a pattern. Oh, you killed Osama–where’s the body? Oh, we dropped him in the ocean man he was, like, heavy. Ok, of course I believe you–you are the U.S. gov’t and you’re always straight with us, right?  

Afghanist- yemen- omalia- bama, & Good Intelligence

Al-Qaeda shifts into dangerous new territory

UK Telegraph, January 04, 2009

The key to success against the jihadists will always be good intelligence.

President Barack Obama’s statement on Saturday linking the failed airline bomb attack over Detroit on Christmas Day to an al-Qaeda group based in Yemen will have surprised no one. It confirmed, if confirmation were needed, that the coming decade will be as dominated as the last by the threat posed to the West by Islamist terrorism. The focus of the battle is, however, shifting. Significant successes by the United States and its allies in both Afghanistan and Pakistan have forced al-Qaeda largely to re-locate to Yemen and Somalia.

It’s a goddamn good thing he’s keeping you “safe” by upping the number of troops in AfPak to 100,000 or more and shooting handcuffed children, right?



Real News Network – January 4, 2010

Afghanistan and global dominance

Engdahl: US China strategy driving Afghan war, but no real long range thinking in place

Fifty Questions on 9/11, by Pepe Escobar


It’s September 11 all over again – eight years on. The George W Bush administration is out. The “global war on terror” is still on, renamed “overseas contingency operations” by the Barack Obama administration. Obama’s “new strategy” – a war escalation – is in play in AfPak. Osama bin Laden may be dead or not. “Al-Qaeda” remains a catch-all ghost entity. September 11 – the neo-cons’ “new Pearl Harbor” – remains the darkest jigsaw puzzle of the young 21st century.

It’s useless to expect US corporate media and the ruling elites’ political operatives to call for a true, in-depth investigation into the attacks on the US on September 11, 2001. Whitewash has been the norm. But even establishment highlight Dr Zbig “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski, a former national security advisor, has admitted to the US Senate that the post-9/11 “war on terror” is a “mythical historical narrative”.

The following questions, some multi-part – and most totally ignored by the 9/11 Commission – are just the tip of the immense 9/11 iceberg. A hat tip goes to the indefatigable work of 911truth.org; whatreallyhappened.com; architects and engineers for 9/11 truth; the Italian documentary Zero: an investigation into 9/11; and Asia Times Online readers’ e-mails.

None of these questions has been convincingly answered – according to the official narrative. It’s up to US civil society to keep up the pressure. Eight years after the fact, one fundamental conclusion is imperative. The official narrative edifice of 9/11 is simply not acceptable.

Fifty questions

Read the whole thing here…

Creating Thousands Of New Recruits For al-Qaeda

Aijaz Ahmad, TRNN Senior Editorial Consultant and political commentator for the Indian newsmagazine Frontline, Political Science teacher, and frequent writer on South Asia and the Middle East, talks with Real News CEO Paul Jay with his analysis of the results of US policies and actions in Pakistan.



Real News Network – May 12, 2009

US policy makes things worse in Pakistan

Aijaz Ahmad: US policy will lead to thousands of new recruits for Al-Qaeda

Obama’s Afghanistan Surge: What’s Going On?

Crossposted from Antemedius

Today in “The secrets of Obama’s surge” Pepe Escobar says that “the President is not exactly telling all that’s going on in AfPak”, and argues there are many more strategic issues at play than meets the eye – and the President and his team’s spin:



President Obama’s highly anticipated new strategy for what the Pentagon now calls AfPak – Afghanistan and Pakistan – is full of grey areas.

Most extra troops will be deployed to poppy-growing areas, not to fight al-Qaeda, the President’s stated number one objective.

The President talks about building trust – but as the US cannot trust the Pakistani ISI, the Pakistani people don’t trust the US or even their own government.