Tag: Al Qaeda

Last night the News Hour carried a report and the discussion with Petraeus and Holbrooke.

This is the site page link where you’ll find the transcript as well as the links for audio and video.

This link will give you their Video Player to watch from here.

There is No win in this now debacle. One thing about warfare these last couple of decades, outside of the bloviated power hawks talking tough to each other as others are sent to do the actual fighting, is every invasion turns to Guerilla Insurgency. It’s lost as soon as the Bombs start dropping, the Missiles Destroy, the Military Invades, ‘Hearts and Minds’ turn to Hate as their countries are destroyed but more important as their Loved Ones and Friends and Fellow Citizens are Blown To Bits or Cut Down by the Bullets Sprayed, than add in the arrests of Innocents, the Blackhole Worldwide Prisons and most of all Torture, Innocents become Enemies Real Fast, Real Fast! They either fight back or support those who do! It becomes an extreme uphill battle to win back a majority of those ‘Hearts and Minds’!!

Just ask yourself “What would you do if you were them?”!

Just think how many here felt after 9/11 and how that was used to kill and destroy many times over since!

Afghanistan stopped being about 9/11, in their eyes and the worlds eyes and minds as soon as the drums started beating towards Iraq. Security and money Stopped coming in to Stabilizes after the Taliban were removed and al Qaeda were forced to run, It Became The Quagmire That Exists Today and has expanded into Pakistan thus Inflaming the whole region even more!

Can stability be brought back, it’s possible, but the Hate will be Deeply Embedded, especially in the children growing up in the destruction and death, the ones that survive, and will linger for their decades of life!!

The only way a Guerilla Insurgency ends is on their time Not The Occupiers, but it than can be inflamed when policy is perceived  to be against those common folks, and they’ve got the fighting experience!!!!!!!

Just an added note, the Escalation, not ‘surge’, did not bring down the death and destruction in Iraq, the Iraqi people, sects, did. And that situation is a match just waiting to relight at anytime, the world can only dampen that match so it doesn’t until the Iraqi’s decide. We destroyed that Pandora’s Box, it’s up to us to try and help rebuild a new one but only if they want the help, and ours is shit in that country, others will fill the void!!  

Michael Scheuer has an interesting series of articles at the Asian Times from the The Jamestown Foundation.  A window in the coming Blowback, that has already reared it’s ugly head in many places and is stoked by throwing intense flames onto the already started fire?

The latest report is called MUJAHIDEEN BLEED-THROUGH, Part 4 with a subtitle “Palestine and Israel: The ring of terror  tightens”

If Robert Fisk’s reporting, and the files they are holding, are believable, apparently we had another of those Evil Terrorists People on our payroll, working and spying for us.

It wouldn’t surprise me.

Things never seem to change especially when the names and faces of long time inner Washington keep popping up!

I caught this Report: Notorious Palestinian Mercenary Was Hired by U.S. to Find Link Between Saddam and Al-Qaeda over at Alternet.

Lost Treasure ©2008 Emily Duffy Photo by Sibila Savage

Cross-posted at my blog.

Dimensions: 29″ x 29″ x 21″

Description: Small wood coffin filled with gold soldiers and coins. Inside, lid has an abused reproduction of the Bill of Rights (burned, torn, dragged through the mud, bled on) and an American flag on outside. Base has pertinent news clippings.

Materials: Wood, velvet, metal, paper, toy soldiers, gold coins (plastic) gold metallic paint, amber varnish.  

The National Security Archive has just released a Load of Files Electronic Briefing Book No. 253 Posted – August 20, 2008 under the title: 1998 Missile Strikes on Bin Laden May Have Backfired with a subtitle: Extensive 1999 Report on Al-Qaeda Threat Released by U.S. Dept of Energy,

Taliban Told U.S. They Wanted to Bomb Washington

With backlinks to the PDF’s and more links in the sidebar on the left.

Meanwhile, back at the Crawford Ranch, W was busy committing War Crimes-

• Laura, where’s that official Iraqi stationery!

• Oh dear.  I used it to clean up after Barney.

• Well I guess I’ll just have to torture me some more.

Once Again Forgeries

By: emptywheel- Tuesday, August 5th, 2008 6:09 am

Ron Suskind: White House ordered forgery to link al-Qaeda/Saddam to 9/11 attacks

By: John Amato- Tuesday, August 5th, 2008 at 8:00 AM – PDT  

Sometimes, An Attack Falls Right Into Your Lap

by: Chris Bowers- Tue Aug 05, 2008 at 12:15

Hear No Evil

by digby- Tuesday, August 05, 2008 10:30 am (PT)

Tenet and the Creamy White House Stationery

By: emptywheel- Tuesday, August 5th, 2008 12:24 pm

John Dean Confirms Suskind’s Book Focuses On Impeachable Crimes

By: Nicole Belle- Wednesday, August 6th, 2008 at 2:00 PM – PDT  

Not a Question of If, But Who, Forged the Letter

By: emptywheel- Friday August 8, 2008 7:13 am

Suskind’s Report About Forged Iraq-Al Qaeda Letter Holding Up Under Scrutiny

By Andrew Tilghman- August 8, 2008, 3:16PM

The American Conservative!!!

Suskind Revisited

by Philip Giraldi

Posted on August 7th, 2008

An extremely reliable and well placed source in the intelligence community has informed me that Ron Suskind’s revelation that the White House ordered the preparation of a forged letter linking Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda and also to attempts made to obtain yellowcake uranium is correct but that a number of details are wrong.

…

It was Feith’s office that produced the letter and then surfaced it to the media in Iraq.  Unlike the Agency, the Pentagon had no restrictions on it regarding the production of false information to mislead the public.

The NGO network in Afghanistan (Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief – ACBAR) reports that the number of civilian casualties caused by all sides has “surged” and that insecurity has spread to previously stable areas.

The number of insurgent attacks for each of the months of May (463), June (569) and July is greater than the number of such attacks in any other months since the end of major hostilities following the international intervention in 2001…

July was reportedly the worst month for Afghan civilians in the past six years, with 260 civilian casualties recorded…

Now, due primarily to a stepped up air operations, Afghanistan, “the good war” is turning bad.

On the 29th of July an extremely important think tank report, paid for by the government, came forth from the Rand Corporation, a favorite of the Pentagon on National Security matters.

I heard the report early that morning on a news blip on NPR and went over to the Rand Site and found the report. I than posted about it on a number of sites as well as sent it out, all with back links.

There was also a link for a Congressional Briefing to be held on that day on the report.

At first I was shocked that very few picked up on the importance of this report, that day and the next, as well as the hearing. Than thinking about it later maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised that few political boards saw the need to report and most certainly fewer MSM outlets as well. There’s an Awful Lot of sheepish guilty consciouses that supported this criminal administration, and criminal it is, in the direction it started selling this ‘War on Terrorism’, and the MSM, purely for commercial profit, would love to see what their advertisers were paying for ads than, happily went along, War Sells Big Time! Hell these political people, the boards, the MSM, the majority of the voters even fear bringing charges and accountability, fear of what that may mean on the political front, to hell with the Constitution the Politics are more important!

Rand Corporation has recently published a report which concludes that terrorist groups rarely cease to exist as a result of winning or losing a military campaign. To me it is mind-boggling that it took Rand, or anyone else, 8 years to come to this conclusion. Now the damage has been done. Hundreds of billions of dollars wasted, over a million lives lost, millions of people displaced, destruction of property and in the end we’ve only created more “terrorists” which in turn could be used as a pretext to continue the GWOT.

By analyzing a comprehensive roster of terrorist groups that existed worldwide between 1968 and 2006, the authors found that most groups ended because of operations carried out by local police or intelligence agencies or because they negotiated a settlement with their governments. Military force was rarely the primary reason a terrorist group ended, and few groups within this time frame achieved victory.

These findings suggest that the U.S. approach to countering al Qa’ida has focused far too much on the use of military force. Instead, policing and intelligence should be the backbone of U.S. efforts.

The title above comes from a new Rand Corporation Report

After 7 years of conflict and occupations, with 893 coalition deaths — 556 Americans, in Afghanistan and increasing, and 4,438 coalition deaths — 4,124 Americans in Iraq and increasing, with tens of thousands of injured and maimed, physically and mentally, and millions of innocents in both countries killed, maimed, living as refugee’s, fighting each other in sectarian civil wars, living in ethnically cleansed neighborhoods and area’s in Iraq behind huge concrete blast walls, this “Think Tank?” comes out and says:

U.S. Should Rethink “War On Terrorism” Strategy to Deal with Resurgent Al Qaida

Current U.S. strategy against terrorist organization al Qaida has not been successful at limiting the group’s capabilities. Since Sept. 11, 2001, al Qaida has been involved in more terrorist attacks than ever before and over an increasingly broader range of targets.

Senator Obama, the presumed Democratic presidential candidate, has said that he wants to withdraw all US combat troops from Iraq within about 16 months. Now it appears that political differences are narrowing and that a possible consensus is building for just that.

The Wall Street Journal in an article on 23 July by By John D. McKinnon, Yochi J. Dreazen and Elizabeth Holmes noted that President Bush had announced a week earlier that he would agree to a “time horizon” for withdrawal. The Prime Minister of Iraq is also pleased.

In the days that followed, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki publicly endorsed a target date for withdrawal — the end of 2010, roughly in line with the mid-2010 time frame advocated by Sen. Barack Obama.