PopularFX
Home Help Search Login Register
Welcome,Guest. Please login or register.
2024-03-29, 05:30:24
News: If you have a suggestion or need for a new board title, please PM the Admins.
Please remember to keep topics and posts of the FE or casual nature. :)

Pages: 1 ... 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 [52] 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 ... 100
Author Topic: 9/11 debate - enter at your own risk!  (Read 968940 times)
Group: Guest
How this all evolves in the near future should be
quite interesting.

With NATO and Russian aircraft both operating in the region, I can see
the future headlines already:

Russian aircraft engage NATO forces in a deliberate show of aggression.

Of course most of us will know it was a setup and any NATO aircraft
splashed probably didn't take fire from Russian forces.  The TV will
show smoking wreckage and the visual mind control implants will
seduce the wandering masses to take action, which the government
will promptly enact, having been pre-planned long before now.
   

Group: Professor
Hero Member
*****

Posts: 2502
Everyman decries immorality
With NATO and Russian aircraft both operating in the region, I can see
the future headlines already:

Russian aircraft engage NATO forces in a deliberate show of aggression.

This slide captures the essence of why the aggressors will hesitate to play that card:

Russia goes to war with ISIS: Why and how?

http://www.rt.com/news/317021-russia-syria-engagement-how/


---------------------------
Everyman Standing Order 01: In the Face of Tyranny; Everybody Stands, Nobody Runs.
Everyman Standing Order 02: Everyman is Responsible for Energy and Security.
Everyman Standing Order 03: Everyman knows Timing is Critical in any Movement.
   
Group: Guest
Legality?

Since when has the West cared a flying flip over anything legal, lawful, moral, ethical or righteous.

I think it comes down to timing and some master plan/script.  No, the West is playing an interesting
form of chess here.  They will take the easy capture of an opposing piece when given to them, but
they are in it for the long haul.  If it takes another century to complete their plan, so be it.  It's the
mid-level technocrats that get impatient because they want to see victory in their lifetime.  However
the real masters playing this game could care less about those directly underneath.  They will plow
forward at a pace that suits the circumstances, even if the end-game goes all the way to two kings
and one pawn.  This is the kind of game I think they really want anyway.  Nothing left to chance,
no one left to get in their way.
   

Group: Tinkerer
Hero Member
*****

Posts: 3055
Prophecy tells us that Damascus will be utterly destroyed,
as if by Nuclear Weapon.  It also reveals that that forces
of The Bear and The Dragon will be involved in conflict in
the Middle East in the vicinity of the Holy Land.

Until recently it was difficult to imagine how this scenario
could manifest.  Now it is becoming quite clear.  There are
even rumors that the IS has, or will have, access to nuclear
weapons.

The Enablers of the IS have considerable financial clout.
The Zionist Plan for Greater Israel is gaining momentum.

Political Analysis by a man who "gets it."

Another sorry example of how the U.S. wages war.

Beam me up Scotty!

Tony Cartalucci adds to the truth.

Washing Machines.

While this is a rather long article;  it explains a great deal.
« Last Edit: 2015-10-04, 03:39:41 by muDped »


---------------------------
For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open.
   

Group: Elite Experimentalist
Hero Member
*****

Posts: 4498


Buy me some coffee
I do not see a nuclear war ever being an event that will take place. We have those that wish to control the masses and riches this planet has to offer. If a nuclear war was to devistate this planet,what do they have left to control?-->nothing but a baron waste land.

I do how ever, believe that this planet(well the human race anyway)dose need a restart/reboot,and there needs to be a big hit/impact of some sort for this to happen.
It would seem that all men are no longer equal,and that the governments and powers that be no longer act upon our best interest.

One of the biggest problems this world has,is as Matt said-the media. As long as it is up to main stream media to bring us the stories,the truth will never make it to our ears.


---------------------------
Never let your schooling get in the way of your education.
   
Hero Member
*****

Posts: 1576
Prophecy tells us that Damascus will be utterly destroyed,
as if by Nuclear Weapon.
What prophesy? What chapter and verse?
   

Group: Tinkerer
Hero Member
*****

Posts: 3055
Quote from: Paul-R
What prophesy? What chapter and verse?

Excellent questions!  The answers to those questions are
literally at your "fingertips."

Just do a search for "prophecy of damascus destruction" and
numerous links will be provided.  Two of the more interesting
links:

Damascus Destruction Prophecy

Damascus Will be Destroyed

The destruction of Damascus is an important event in the
time-line of what is to come.




---------------------------
For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open.
   
Hero Member
*****

Posts: 1576

The destruction of Damascus is an important event in the
time-line of what is to come.

Do you have any evidence that these books are not a practical joke put together a couple of hundred years ago?

(The island on which John is alleged to have written Revelations has, today, psilocybin mushrooms all over it. If this were to be the case then, it might explain his nutty predictions).
   

Group: Professor
Hero Member
*****

Posts: 2502
Everyman decries immorality
Muammar Gaddafi

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muammar_Gaddafi

Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi[6][7] (Arabic: معمر محمد أبو منيار القذافي‎; /ˈmoʊ.əmɑr ɡəˈdɑːfi/; About this sound audio (help·info); c. 1942 – 20 October 2011), commonly known as Colonel Gaddafi, was a Libyan revolutionary and politician who governed Libya as its primary leader from 1969 to 2011. Taking power in a coup d'etat, he ruled as Revolutionary Chairman of the Libyan Arab Republic from 1969 to 1977 and then as the "Brotherly Leader" of the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya from 1977 to 2011, when he was ousted in the Libyan Civil War. Initially developing his own variant of Arab nationalism and Arab socialism known as the Third International Theory, he later embraced Pan-Africanism and served as Chairperson of the African Union from 2009 to 2010.

The son of an impoverished Bedouin goat herder, Gaddafi became involved in politics while at school in Sabha, subsequently enrolling in the Royal Military Academy, Benghazi. Founding a revolutionary cell within the military, in 1969 they seized power from the monarchy of King Idris in a bloodless coup. Becoming Chairman of the governing Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), Gaddafi abolished the monarchy and proclaimed the Republic. Ruling by decree, he implemented measures to remove what he viewed as foreign imperialist influence from Libya, and strengthened ties to Arab nationalist governments. Intent on pushing Libya towards "Islamic socialism", he introduced sharia as the basis for the legal system and nationalized the oil industry, using the increased revenues to bolster the military, implement social programs and fund revolutionary militants across the world. In 1973 he initiated a "Popular Revolution" with the formation of General People's Committees (GPCs), purported to be a system of direct democracy, but retained personal control over major decisions. He outlined his Third International Theory that year, publishing these ideas in The Green Book.

In 1977, with the country under his complete control, he dissolved the Republic and created his new state, the Jamahiriya ("state of the masses"). Officially adopting a symbolic role in governance, he retained power as military commander-in-chief and head of the Revolutionary Committees responsible for policing and suppressing opponents. Overseeing unsuccessful border conflicts with Egypt and Chad, Gaddafi's support for foreign militants and alleged responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing led to Libya's label of "international pariah". A particularly hostile relationship developed with the United States and United Kingdom, resulting in the 1986 U.S. bombing of Libya and United Nations-imposed economic sanctions. Rejecting his earlier ideological commitments, from 1999 Gaddafi encouraged economic privatization and sought rapprochement with Western nations, also embracing Pan-Africanism and helping to establish the African Union. Amid the Arab Spring, in 2011 an anti-Gaddafist uprising led by the National Transitional Council (NTC) broke out, resulting in civil war. NATO intervened militarily on the side of the NTC, bringing about the government's downfall. Retreating to Sirte, Gaddafi was captured and killed by NTC militants.

Gaddafi was a controversial and highly divisive world figure. Supporters lauded his anti-imperialist stance and his support for Pan-Africanism and Pan-Arabism, and he was decorated with various awards. Conversely, he was internationally condemned as a dictator and autocrat whose authoritarian administration violated the human rights of Libyan citizens, and supported irredentist movements, tribal warfare and terrorism in many other nations.

Italo-Turkish War

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italo-Turkish_War

The Italo-Turkish or Turco-Italian War (Turkish: Trablusgarp Savaşı, "Tripolitanian War"; also known in Italy as Guerra di Libia, "Libyan War") was fought between the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Italy from September 29, 1911, to October 18, 1912. As a result of this conflict, Italy captured the Ottoman Tripolitania Vilayet (province), of which the most notable sub-provinces (sanjaks) were Fezzan, Cyrenaica, and Tripoli itself. These territories together formed what became known as Italian Libya.

During the conflict, Italian forces also occupied the Dodecanese islands in the Aegean Sea. Italy had agreed to return Dodecanese to the Ottoman Empire according to the Treaty of Ouchy[10] in 1912 (also known as the First Treaty of Lausanne (1912), as it was signed at the Château d'Ouchy in Lausanne, Switzerland.) However, the vagueness of the text allowed a provisional Italian administration of the islands, and Turkey eventually renounced all claims on these islands in Article 15 of the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923.[11]

The Ottomans had to withdraw all their military forces and administrative agents from Libya according to Article 2 of the Treaty of Ouchy in 1912 (per Article 22 of the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923.)[11]

Although minor, the war was a significant precursor of the First World War as it sparked nationalism in the Balkan states. Seeing how easily the Italians had defeated the weakened Ottomans, the members of the Balkan League attacked the Ottoman Empire before the war with Italy had ended.

The Italo-Turkish War saw numerous technological changes, notably the airplane. On October 23, 1911, an Italian pilot, Captain Carlo Piazza, flew over Turkish lines on the world's first aerial reconnaissance mission,[12] and on November 1, the first ever aerial bomb was dropped by Sottotenente Giulio Gavotti, on Turkish troops in Libya, from an early model of Etrich Taube aircraft.[13] The Turks, lacking anti-aircraft weapons, were the first to shoot down an aeroplane by rifle fire.[14]

It was also in this conflict that the future first president of Turkey and leader of the Turkish War of Independence, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, distinguished himself militarily as a young officer during the Battle of Tobruk.

Background

The claims of Italy over Libya dated back to Turkey's defeat by Russia in the war of 1877–1878 and subsequent discussions after the Congress of Berlin in 1878, in which France and Great Britain had agreed to the occupation of Tunisia and Cyprus respectively, both parts of the then declining Ottoman Empire. When Italian diplomats hinted about possible opposition by their government, the French replied that Tripoli would have been a counterpart for Italy. In 1902, Italy and France had signed a secret treaty which accorded freedom of intervention in Tripolitania and Morocco.[15] However, the Italian government did little to realize the opportunity and knowledge of Libyan territory and resources remained scarce in the following years.

The Italian press began a large-scale lobbying campaign in favour of an invasion of Libya at the end of March 1911. It was fancifully depicted as rich in minerals, well-watered, and defended by only 4,000 Ottoman troops. Also, the population was described as hostile to the Ottoman Empire and friendly to the Italians: the future invasion was going to be little more than a "military walk", according to them.

The Italian government was hesitant initially, but in the summer the preparations for the invasion were carried out and Prime Minister Giovanni Giolitti began to probe the other European major powers about their reactions to a possible invasion of Libya. The Socialist party had strong influence over public opinion. However, it was in opposition and also divided on the issue. It acted ineffectively against a military intervention. (The future fascist leader Benito Mussolini – at this time still a left-wing Socialist – took a prominent anti-war position.)

An ultimatum was presented to the Ottoman government led by the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) party on the night of 26–27 September. Through Austrian intermediation, the Ottomans replied with the proposal of transferring control of Libya without war, maintaining a formal Ottoman suzerainty. This suggestion was comparable to the situation in Egypt, which was under formal Ottoman suzerainty, but was actually controlled by the United Kingdom. Giolitti refused, and war was declared on September 29, 1911.

War

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War

War is a state of armed conflict between societies. It is generally characterized by extreme collective aggression, destruction, and usually high mortality. The set of techniques and actions used to conduct war is known as warfare. An absence of war is usually called "peace". Total war is warfare that is not restricted to purely legitimate military targets, and can result in massive civilian or other non-combatant casualties.

While some scholars[according to whom?] see war as a universal and ancestral aspect of human nature,[1] others argue that it is only a result of specific socio-cultural or ecological circumstances.[2]

In 2013 war resulted in 31,000 deaths down from 72,000 deaths in 1990.[3] The deadliest war in history, in terms of the cumulative number of deaths since its start, is the Second World War, with 60–85 million deaths, followed by the Mongol conquests[4] which was greater than 41 million.[5] Proportionally speaking, the most destructive war in modern history is the War of the Triple Alliance, which took the lives of over 60% of Paraguay's population, according to Steven Pinker. In 2003, Richard Smalley identified war as the sixth (of ten) biggest problem facing humanity for the next fifty years.[6] War usually results in significant deterioration of infrastructure and the ecosystem, a decrease in social spending, famine, large-scale emigration from the war zone, and often the mistreatment of prisoners of war or civilians.[7][8][9]

World war

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_war

A world war is a war involving many or most of the world's most powerful and populous countries. World wars span multiple countries on multiple continents, with battles fought in multiple theatres.

The term is usually applied to the two conflicts that occurred during the 20th century:

    World War I, or First World War (1914–1918)

    World War II, or Second World War (1939–1945)

It is also sometimes applied to other wars, including the War of the Spanish Succession, the Seven Years' War, the Cold War and Cold War II, a hypothetical World War III, and even the Napoleonic Wars, if the United States is counted as a belligerent, as it was in the War of 1812 with Great Britain.

Battle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle

Generally, a battle is a conceptual component in the hierarchy of combat in warfare between two or more armed forces, or combatants. A war sometimes consists of many battles. Battles generally are well defined in duration, area, and force commitment.[1]

Wars and military campaigns are guided by strategy, whereas battles take place on a level of planning and execution known as operational mobility.[2] German strategist Carl von Clausewitz stated that "the employment of battles ... to achieve the object of war"[3] was the essence of strategy.


Strategy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategy

Strategy (from Greek στρατηγία stratēgia, "art of troop leader; office of general, command, generalship"[1]) is a high level plan to achieve one or more goals under conditions of uncertainty. In the sense of the "art of the general", which included several subsets of skills including "tactics", siegecraft, logistics etc., the term came into use in the 6th century C.E. in East Roman terminology, and was translated into Western vernacular languages only in the 18th century. From then until the 20th century, the word "strategy" came to denote "a comprehensive way to try to pursue political ends, including the threat or actual use of force, in a dialectic of wills" in a military conflict, in which both adversaries interact.[2]

Strategy is important because the resources available to achieve these goals are usually limited. Strategy generally involves setting goals, determining actions to achieve the goals, and mobilizing resources to execute the actions. A strategy describes how the ends (goals) will be achieved by the means (resources). The senior leadership of an organization is generally tasked with determining strategy. Strategy can be intended or can emerge as a pattern of activity as the organization adapts to its environment or competes. It involves activities such as strategic planning and strategic thinking.[3]

Henry Mintzberg from McGill University defined strategy as "a pattern in a stream of decisions" to contrast with a view of strategy as planning,[4] while Max McKeown (2011) argues that "strategy is about shaping the future" and is the human attempt to get to "desirable ends with available means". Dr. Vladimir Kvint defines strategy as "a system of finding, formulating, and developing a doctrine that will ensure long-term success if followed faithfully."[5]

Strategic thinking

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_thinking

Strategic thinking is defined as a mental or thinking process applied by an individual in the context of achieving success in a game or other endeavor. As a cognitive activity, it produces thought.

When applied in an organizational strategic management process, strategic thinking involves the generation and application of unique business insights and opportunities intended to create competitive advantage for a firm or organisation.[1][2][3] It can be done individually, as well as collaboratively among key people who can positively alter an organization's future. Group strategic thinking may create more value by enabling a proactive and creative dialogue, where individuals gain other people's perspectives on critical and complex issues. This is regarded as a benefit in highly competitive and fast-changing business landscapes.[4][5][6]

Strategic planning

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_planning

Strategic planning is an organization's process of defining its strategy, or direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources to pursue this strategy. It may also extend to control mechanisms for guiding the implementation of the strategy. Strategic planning became prominent in corporations during the 1960s and remains an important aspect of strategic management. It is executed by strategic planners or strategists, who involve many parties and research sources in their analysis of the organization and its relationship to the environment in which it competes.[1]

Strategy has many definitions, but generally involves setting goals, determining actions to achieve the goals, and mobilizing resources to execute the actions. A strategy describes how the ends (goals) will be achieved by the means (resources). The senior leadership of an organization is generally tasked with determining strategy. Strategy can be planned (intended) or can be observed as a pattern of activity (emergent) as the organization adapts to its environment or competes.

Strategy includes processes of formulation and implementation; strategic planning helps coordinate both. However, strategic planning is analytical in nature (i.e., it involves "finding the dots"); strategy formation itself involves synthesis (i.e., "connecting the dots") via strategic thinking. As such, strategic planning occurs around the strategy formation activity.[1]


---------------------------
Everyman Standing Order 01: In the Face of Tyranny; Everybody Stands, Nobody Runs.
Everyman Standing Order 02: Everyman is Responsible for Energy and Security.
Everyman Standing Order 03: Everyman knows Timing is Critical in any Movement.
   

Group: Tinkerer
Hero Member
*****

Posts: 3055
Do you have any evidence that these books are not a practical joke put together a couple of hundred years ago?

(The island on which John is alleged to have written Revelations has, today, psilocybin mushrooms all over it. If this were to be the case then, it might explain his nutty predictions).

The best possible evidence would be to observe
the events predicted actually taking place.  Since
the Damascus event is still future, we must wait
to see how World Powers cause it to take place.

Whether the prophecies are "practical joke" or
"nutty predictions" will be determined by what
transpires in the near future.  There are of course
certain entities who want us to believe it is all
just a load of bull manure.  We shall see...


---------------------------
For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open.
   

Group: Professor
Hero Member
*****

Posts: 2502
Everyman decries immorality
Legality?

West Knowingly Violated Int'l Law by Starting Airstrikes in Syria

http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20151004/1028015809/west-knowingly-violated-international-law-in-syria.html

The US-led coalition blatantly violated international law and UN mandates when it started airstrikes in Syria last year, Evgeni Shestakov wrote for Rossiyskaya Gazeta.

Under the pretext of fighting against terrorism, the United States and its allies militarily intervened into the sovereignty of Syria without the approval from the legitimate government of Bashar al-Assad and without receiving an appropriate UN mandate, Shestakov said.


When it serves Washington's interests, the US government is always quick to point out the faults of others when they disagree with UN mandates; at the same time, the Americans aren't willing to abide by a Security Council resolution on Syria. What a two-faced approach, eh?

Furthermore, when the US-led coalition bombed Syria, the Pentagon didn't worry about providing video or any other kind of evidence that US airstrikes were indeed hitting ISIL targets. The issue of civilians being in areas covered by US airstrikes was never raised either, the journalist said.

During the UN General Assembly meeting, nations that support the US-led airstrikes in Syria spent a lot of time talking about the number of airstrikes carried out against ISIL. However, they all missed the main point.

Nobody spoke about the result of a year-long military operation, especially about the facts that since the start of their airstrikes ISIL has steadily increased territories under its control while the Pentagon-trained "moderate" opposition forces, once on the battlefield, joined the ranks of the jihadists.


French President Francois Hollande proudly spoke about his country's efforts in battling international terrorism by throwing bombs on Syria. However, apart from bragging words, Hollande failed to provide any evidence of French airstrikes. Thus, who the French Rafales really bombed in Syria remains unclear, the Rossiyskaya Gazeta journalist wisely pointed out.

Shestakov asked an important question: how can the United States be a world leader if after declaring war on the terrorists it didn't fail to defeat ISIL after more than a year of airstrikes, but also allowed the jihadists to gain more territory?

Russia, unlike Western countries that use the pretext of fighting terrorism to interfere in Syria without a proper UN mandate, started its airstrikes on ISIL targets in Syria at the request of President Bashar al-Assad. Moscow acts on the request from Damascus and doesn't seek to impose its own political system or a new leader on the Syrian nation. The future of Syrian leadership should be resolved without outside interference, Shestakov said, citing the words of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.


---------------------------
Everyman Standing Order 01: In the Face of Tyranny; Everybody Stands, Nobody Runs.
Everyman Standing Order 02: Everyman is Responsible for Energy and Security.
Everyman Standing Order 03: Everyman knows Timing is Critical in any Movement.
   

Group: Professor
Hero Member
*****

Posts: 2502
Everyman decries immorality
A German database showing the channeling of the money and weapons, provided by ISI officer Mohammad Yousaf in his book: Afghanistan – The Bear Trap: The Defeat of a Superpower

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Afghan_War

The Soviet intervention

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) had been a major power broker and influential mentor in the politics of its poorer and much smaller neighbor. Its involvement ranging from civil-military infrastructure to Afghan society.[59] Since 1947, Afghanistan had been under the influence of the Soviet government and received large amounts of aid, economic assistance, military equipment training and military hardware from the Soviet Union.

The economic assistance and aid had been provided to Afghanistan as early as 1919, shortly after the Russian Revolution and when the regime was facing the Russian Civil War. Provisions were given in the form of small arms, ammunition, a few aircraft, and (according to debated Soviet sources) a million gold rubles to support the resistance during the Third Anglo-Afghan War. In 1942, the USSR again moved to strengthen the Afghan Armed Forces, by providing small arms and aircraft, and establishing training centers in Tashkent (Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic). Soviet-Afghan military cooperation began on a regular basis in 1956, and further agreements were made in the 1970s, which saw the USSR send advisers and specialists.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War

Russo-Georgian War

The Russo-Georgian War was an armed conflict between Georgia, Russia, and the Russian-backed self-proclaimed republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.[note 3] The war took place in August 2008 following a period of worsening relations between Russia and Georgia, both formerly constituent republics of the Soviet Union. The fighting took place in the strategically important Transcaucasia region, which borders the Middle East. It was regarded as the first European war of the 21st century.[29]

War in Donbass

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Donbass

The War in Donbass (also called the War in Ukraine or War in Eastern Ukraine) is an armed conflict in the Donbass region of Ukraine. From the beginning of March 2014, demonstrations by pro-Russian and anti-government groups took place in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts of Ukraine, together commonly called the "Donbass", in the aftermath of the 2014 Ukrainian revolution and the Euromaidan movement. These demonstrations, which followed the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, and which were part of a wider group of concurrent pro-Russian protests across southern and eastern Ukraine, escalated into an armed conflict between the separatist forces of the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics (DPR and LPR respectively), and the Ukrainian government.[43][44] Prior to a change of the top leadership in August,[45] the separatists were largely led by Russian citizens.[46] During the summer of 2014, Russian paramilitaries were reported to make up between 15% and 80% of the combatants.[46][47][48][49]

Between 22 and 25 August, Russian artillery, personnel, and what Russia called a "humanitarian convoy" were reported to have crossed the border into Ukrainian territory without the permission of the Ukrainian government. Crossings were reported to have occurred both in areas under the control of pro-Russian forces and areas that were not under their control, such as the south-eastern part of Donetsk Oblast, near Novoazovsk. These events followed the reported shelling of Ukrainian positions from the Russian side of the border over the course of the preceding month.[50][51][52][53][54] Head of the Security Service of Ukraine Valentyn Nalyvaichenko said that the events of 22 August were a "direct invasion by Russia of Ukraine".[55] Western and Ukrainian officials described these events as a "stealth invasion" of Ukraine by Russia.[54]

As a result of this, DPR and LPR insurgents regained much of the territory they had lost during the preceding government military offensive. A deal to establish a ceasefire, called the Minsk Protocol, was signed on 5 September 2014.[56] Violations of the ceasefire on both sides were common. Amidst the solidification of the line between insurgent and government-controlled territory during the ceasefire, warlords took control of swathes of land on the insurgent side, leading to further destabilisation.[57] The ceasefire completely collapsed in January 2015, with renewed heavy fighting across the conflict zone, including at Donetsk International Airport and Debaltseve. A new ceasefire, called Minsk II, was agreed to on 12 February 2015. Immediately following the signing of the agreement, separatist forces launched an offensive on Debaltseve and forced Ukrainian forces to withdraw from it. In the months after the fall of Debaltseve, minor skirmishes continued along the line of contact, but no territorial changes occurred. This state of stalemate led the war to be labelled a "frozen conflict".[58]

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17/MAS17)[a] was a scheduled international passenger flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur that crashed on 17 July 2014 after being shot down, killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew on board.[2] The Boeing 777-200ER airliner lost contact about 50 km (31 mi) from the Ukraine–Russia border and crashed near Torez in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, 40 km (25 mi) from the border.[3]

The crash occurred during the battle in Shakhtarsk Raion, part of the ongoing war in Donbass, in an area controlled by the Donbass People's Militia.[4] According to American and German intelligence sources, the plane was shot down by pro-Russian insurgents using a Buk surface-to-air missile (SA-11) fired from the territory which they controlled.[5] The Russian government blamed the Ukrainian government.[6] The Dutch Safety Board is currently leading an investigation into the incident and issued a preliminary report on 9 September 2014; a final accident report will be released October 2015.[7]

An independent analysis by Bellingcat of open-source evidence indicated that Russian-backed separatists were in control of a Buk missile launcher on 17 July and transported it from Donetsk to Snizhne,[8][9][10] while three eyewitnesses told the BBC that such a missile launcher was operated by a crew that seemed to be Russian in the area on that date.[11] US sources attributed the downing to a missile fired from separatist-controlled territory, with their judgement based on sensors that traced the path of the missile, analysis of shrapnel patterns in the wreckage, voice print analysis of separatists' conversations in which they claimed credit for the strike, as well as photos and other data from social media sites.[6]

Immediately after the crash, a post appeared on the VKontakte social media profile attributed to Russian Colonel Igor Girkin, leader of the Donbass separatists, claiming responsibility for shooting down an AN-26,[12][13][14] but after it became clear that a civilian aircraft had been shot down, the separatists denied any involvement, and the post was taken down. Russia has said that Ukraine "bears full, total responsibility" for the crash because it happened in Ukrainian airspace.[15] The Ukrainian government states the missile was launched by "Russian professionals and coordinated from Russia".[16][17] In June 2015, Buk manufacturer, the Russian concern Almaz-Antey announced that MH17 had been downed by a 9М38М1 Buk-M1 missile.[18]

Malaysia said intelligence reports on the downing of MH17 were "pretty conclusive", but more investigation was necessary to be certain that a surface-to-air missile brought down the plane, after which they would look at the criminal side.[19][20][21] The German Federal Intelligence Service reportedly concluded that the plane was shot down by pro-Russian separatists using a captured Ukrainian Buk system.[22][23][24]

CT scans of MH17 victims showed "non-aircraft metal"[25] and on 19 December 2014 the Ukrainian security service said that some of the bodies contained metal fragments that indicated the plane was shot down by a surface-to-air missile.[26] Preliminary evidence from the ongoing Dutch investigation has concluded that the plane was most likely downed by a Russian unit that was probably manned by a Russian crew, though other possibilities have not yet been ruled out.[27][28] In August 2015, possible BUK missile parts were found at the crash site by a joint investigation team comprising representatives of the Netherlands, Ukraine, Malaysia, Australia, the UK, US and Russia.[29][30]

In July 2015 Malaysia proposed a United Nations resolution to set up an international tribunal to prosecute those suspected of being behind the downing of the plane. While the proposal gained a majority on the UN Security Council (11 countries voting for it, 3 abstaining), it was vetoed by Russia.

The crash of Flight 17 was the fifth Boeing 777 hull loss.[31] The crash was Malaysia Airlines' worst incident and its second of the year, after the disappearance of Flight 370 four months earlier.[32]

2nd Hit William Nunez

http://www.911conspiracy.tv/2nd_hit_photos.html

Bond analyst Will Nuñez had gone to his corner newsstand and bought a $14.99 disposable Kodak, hoping to record the smoking tower out his office window "for history's sake," he says. "I remembered an incident back in the thirties when a plane had hit the Empire State Building, and I was always impressed by photos in encyclopedias." Instead, from his perch on the thirty-second floor of One State Street Plaza, he captured the plane's breathtaking blur out his office window, quite unintentionally. In his shot, a colleague, standing before a vast picture window, looks on in silhouette, next to an innocuous baseball trophy, its tiny batter poised on a two-handled loving cup. The plane had streaked by with such speed, Nuñez had not even realized he had caught it on film until he finally got around to developing the roll a week or two later.
- David Friend, Watching the World Change: The Stories Behind the Images of 9/11, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, p. 13.


---------------------------
Everyman Standing Order 01: In the Face of Tyranny; Everybody Stands, Nobody Runs.
Everyman Standing Order 02: Everyman is Responsible for Energy and Security.
Everyman Standing Order 03: Everyman knows Timing is Critical in any Movement.
   

Group: Professor
Hero Member
*****

Posts: 2502
Everyman decries immorality
Britain drew up plans to build 100,000-strong Syrian rebel army

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10947773/Britain-drew-up-plans-to-build-100000-strong-Syrian-rebel-army.html

General Sir David Richards prepared plan as chief of defence staff but army was later ordered to abandon them, amid confusion over military policy on Syria


By Richard Spencer, Middle East Correspondent

9:00PM BST 04 Jul 2014

The British army drew up but was ordered to abandon plans to build, train and equip a 100,000-strong Syrian rebel army to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad, according to new revelations which expose confusion at the heart of British defence and foreign policy.

General Sir David Richards, now Lord Richards of Herstmonceux, drew up the plans when he was chief of defence staff and thus senior military adviser to the government.

He, along with Sir John Sawers, the head of MI6, were sceptical of David Cameron’s government’s preference for a direct but limited military involvement in the Syrian conflict, such as imposing a no-fly zone, preferring to stay out altogether if possible, The Telegraph has learned.

Lord Richards thought that if intervention were undertaken it should be decisive but “hands off”, leading to the development of the plan to arm a rebel force.

The plans were eventually considered by the National Security Council, which is chaired by the Prime Minister, but were rejected as too ambitious.

 Mr Cameron’s preference for a limited military involvement, specifically taking part in US-led air strikes, was revived after the chemical weapons attacks on suburbs of Damascus on August 21 last year, but then was voted down by the House of Commons.

That left Britain without a military policy on Syria at all. Mr Cameron immediately stated he would not revive plans at a later date, while the government’s foreign policy remained that Mr Assad should be forced to step down.

The plans for a British-trained rebel army were revealed by the BBC Newsnight programme and have been confirmed to The Telegraph. There was no comment from the government or the Ministry of Defence.

Rebels would have been chosen over a 12-month period from groups already fighting the regime, and taken for training to neighbouring Jordan and Turkey, which both support the uprising. Those numbers would then, in theory, have been able to sustain the momentum of an attack on Damascus, particularly if backed by air power provided by the West and friendly Gulf countries.

The plan would have been a larger-scale version of the intervention in Libya in 2011, when the SAS provided training and planning to rebel groups as they marched on Tripoli under the cover of a United Nations-supported, western-provided No Fly Zone.

The 12-month period would allow time for a replacement government to be formed in exile.

The Telegraph has learned that the plans were drawn up in part because Lord Richards thought a “half-hearted” approach to intervention would not work. Lord Richards was known to have had doubts about the Libyan operation, because it risked dragging Britain into a long-drawn-out conflict in an area where it had no vital interests - even more so the case with Syria.

The failure of the West to come to the aid of the Syrian rebels in the early phases of the conflict, before the opposition became dominated by hardline Islamists, is the subject of great bitterness among the Syrian opposition.

Early declarations by Mr Cameron, William Hague, the foreign secretary, and by President Barack Obama that Mr Assad had to step down were interpreted as a sign that the West would intervene as it had with Col Muammar Gaddafi in Libya.

However, the continued violent divisions in Libya following Col Gaddafi’s death, and the killing of the US ambassador, Chris Stephens, in Benghazi in 2012, have only made western leaders more reluctant to commit to Mr Assad’s military overthrow.

“A huge opportunity was missed and that opportunity could have saved tens of thousands of lives actually and could have saved also a huge humanitarian catastrophe,” said Monzer Akbik, a representative of the opposition Syrian National Coalition.

Opinion polls showed most Britons and Americans were opposed to further military involvement in the Middle East, and that was reflected in the House of Commons vote.

However, the drive into Iraq of the most powerful militia in Syria, the ultra-radical Islamic State, has renewed concern that Britain and America cannot afford to stand by as the region descends into a long civil war, particularly because many of the jihadists also describe themselves as enemies of the West.

The White House has now asked Congress to approve $500 million (£293 million) to arm and train moderate rebels.

Libya: 'Recall Parliament to debate regime change'

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8454220/Libya-Recall-Parliament-to-debate-regime-change.html

MPs have called for Parliament to be recalled to debate David Cameron’s admission that military action in Libya will continue until Colonel Muammar Gaddafi is toppled.

By James Kirkup

4:52PM BST 15 Apr 2011

Conservative and Labour members said that the Prime Minister’s statement – made jointly with Barack Obama and Nicolas Sarkozy – showed that the Libyan mission had moved from its original humanitarian purpose and was now about regime change.

Fuelling concerns about mission creep in Libya, a French minister admitted that the Western coalition risks “moving beyond” the original United Nations resolution that authorised military action to protect Libyan civilians.

When the conflict started last month, Mr Cameron told MPs that the allies were not seeking to remove Col Gaddafi. But in a joint article with his fellow leaders, he declared: “So long as Gaddafi is in power, Nato and its coalition partners must maintain their operations.”

Gerard Longuet, the French defence minister, conceded that ousting the Libyan leader went beyond the authority of UN Security Resolution 1973. “It does not address the future of Gaddafi,” he said. “Perhaps one day the Security Council will make another resolution.”

Paris and London were ready to target Col Gaddafi and his chain of command, he said.

The Commons began its Easter recess last week and is not due to return until April 26. MPs said Parliament should be recalled to debate the apparent shift in strategy.

John Baron, a Conservative MP, said: “I feel that mission in Libya has changed quite significantly.”

David Davis, a former shadow home secretary, said Mr Cameron needed MPs’ approval for the new Libyan mission. “Parliament did not authorise the next phase. To go to the next phase he has to get parliamentary authority,” he said.

The British, French and US leaders offered their united front on Libya as Nato allies including Italy continued to resist calls to contribute more military forces to the mission.

Libya Then and Now: An Overview of NATO’s Handiwork


http://www.globalresearch.ca/libya-then-and-now-an-overview-of-natos-handiwork/5415563

In 2011, as the entire world watched the Arab Spring in amazement, the US and its allies, predominantly  working under the banner of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), militarily overran the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.

The peaceful civilian protesters they claimed to be intervening to protect were not really what the US and its cohorts presented to the world. Many of these so-called “protesters” were armed, and when this became apparent they eventually began to portray themselves as “rebel forces.” These so-called “rebels” in Libya were not a military force that emerged spontaneously for the most part, but an insurgency movement cultivated and organised before any opposition activities were even reported in Libya.

Libya: From Africa’s Richest State Under Gaddafi, to Failed State After NATO Intervention

http://www.globalresearch.ca/libya-from-africas-richest-state-under-gaddafi-to-failed-state-after-nato-intervention/5408740

This article was first published on October 19, 2014.

This week marks the three-year anniversary of the Western-backed assassination of Libya’s former president, Muammar Gaddafi, and the fall of one of Africa’s greatest nations.

In 1967 Colonel Gaddafi inherited one of the poorest nations in Africa; however, by the time he was assassinated, Gaddafi had turned Libya into Africa’s wealthiest nation. Libya had the highest GDP per capita and life expectancy on the continent. Less people lived below the poverty line than in the Netherlands.

After NATO’s intervention in 2011, Libya is now a failed state and its economy is in shambles. As the government’s control slips through their fingers and into to the militia fighters’ hands, oil production has all but stopped.

The Destruction of Libya, the Destabilization of a Nation. US-NATO Crimes against Humanity

http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-destruction-of-libya-the-destabilization-of-a-nation-us-nato-crimes-against-humanity/5437027

The late Col. Muammar Gaddafi, hailed as the “Great Leader” by the Libyan people during his incumbency, was murdered by Chad, Somali and Sudanese mercenaries in collusion with NATO and US invading forces on October 19, 2011.

Gaddafi’s Libya, two years before he was ousted and assassinated was considered as one of Africa’s most affluent countries.

Prof. Garikai Chengu a scholar of Middle East affairs at Harvard University wrote:

“In 1967, Colonel Gaddafi inherited one of the poorest nations in Africa; however, by the time he was assassinated, Gaddafi had turned Libya into Africa’s wealthiest nation. Libya had the highest GDP per capita and life expectancy on the African continent. Less people lived below the poverty line than in the Netherlands…”

But look at what happened to Libya after the US/NATO interventionism! It is now in complete political anarchy, with a destroyed economy and a war torn society.

Presently, we cannot call Libya a State for after US/NATO armed intervention and regime change, practically all Libyan villages, from North to South, are now run by the various tribes that was once united under Gaddafi. Libya is in the state of civil war showing the inevitability of what Hobbes called “the ugly, brutish, nasty and chaotic state of nature” characterizing political anarchy. In this post-Gaddafi Libya, the anarchic and lawless militias are wrecking havoc in different parts of the country—each fighting each other for supremacy. The so-called “Islamist” Jemaa-Islamiyya and ISIS forces are busy carving out their own respective territories in the once secular and progressive socialist Libya.

Libya is now a stateless anarchy since various tribes and militias are declaring their own sort-of states in various parts of the country. NATO interventionism and US Hegemony has totally wrecked Libya and Libya as one of the recent casualty of the so-called “Arab Spring” turned out as hell-hole of internecine, civil, regional and tribal wars instead of establishing “democracy” in Libyan soil.

The USA has been scheming for over four decades to topple Gaddafi because he never allowed US and the First World countries allied by US to dictate on the Libyan oil policy program. Gaddafi, by not subscribing to international lending institutions’ capitalistic financing and onerous loan programs, did not allow the IMF-WB to wreck havoc in the economy of the country.

Regime change is illegal: end of debate

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/3616571/Regime-change-is-illegal-end-of-debate.html

By Alasdair Palmer

12:01AM BST 01 May 2005

'I would never do anything against the advice of the Attorney General," the Prime Minister has repeatedly insisted. Yet he did do something against the Attorney General's advice. He helped the Americans invade Iraq and replace its Ba'athist regime.

Lord Goldsmith's confidential advice to the Prime Minister on the legality of invading Iraq without a second UN resolution, revealed for the first time last week, was equivocal about almost everything. It was clear about one point and one point only: "Regime change," insisted the Attorney General, "cannot be the object of military action." Any invasion which had that goal would be unambiguously illegal under international law.

As everyone knows now, and knew perfectly well then, the whole point of the invasion of Iraq was regime change. President Bush said so with Tony Blair standing by his side. At the joint press conference the two leaders gave at George Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, on April 6, 2002, he helpfully summed up the purpose of the military action against Iraq in a single sentence: "We support regime change." For George Bush, no further elaboration was necessary.

Despite Mr Blair's statement that "If I had not taken the action I did, Saddam would still be in power," it was not he, but President Bush who removed Saddam. Tony Blair was an accessory to the American invasion - but British forces were so small a part of it that they were not critical to its success. As President Bush emphasised, the Americans were prepared to go it alone without Tony Blair and Britain's armed forces. Two weeks before the invasion started, he offered to do precisely that, as he saw the enormous political difficulties the Prime Minister faced in getting Parliamentary approval for the war. Tony Blair rejected the offer. "I said I'm with you and I mean it," he insisted.

Last week, most of the discussion of the Attorney General's advice centred on whether it was "arguable" that the invasion would be legal without a second UN resolution explicitly authorising it. Yet when compared with the glaring illegality of an invasion whose explicit purpose was regime change, this is a non-issue. The Prime Minister knew it, the Attorney General knew it, the Cabinet knew it, and so did anyone who bothered to think about it. What, then, was Tony Blair doing when he stated: "What is important is that whatever action we take is done in accordance with international law"?

President Bush never wavered in his conviction that regime change was the main purpose of the invasion. He was not interested in a second resolution from the UN - he was not really interested in the question of whether America's action was in accordance with "international law". It was the Prime Minister who persuaded him to try to get a second resolution from the Security Council explicitly authorising war. President Bush made the effort as a favour to Tony Blair, despite the very evident scepticism of Messers Cheney and Rumsfeld.

Their scepticism was understandable. Returning to the UN was a gesture whose only point was to keep up a charade for the benefit of the Labour backbenchers. Tony Blair knew that if he were honest with them he would fail to get them to vote for the war. The pretence, however, did not fool the members of the Security Council, which never came close to approving that second resolution. They shared the Attorney General's original view that an invasion whose purpose was regime change could not be legal under international law.

Mr Blair's attempt to claim that the aim of the invasion was really only to disarm Saddam - if it happened to topple him from power, that was an unexpected side-effect - was pathetically unpersuasive. Tony Blair was like a man who offers as his defence to a charge of being an accessory to murder that, although he had joined a group of men whose ring-leader had expressly stated as they set out together that their joint purpose was to bludgeon a rival to death, he had gone along only because he wanted to disarm the guy: bludgeoning him to death was simply a means to that quite separate goal.

The repeated insistence of the Prime Minister, the Attorney General and, indeed, the whole Cabinet, that the invasion of Iraq was compatible with international law seems simply to have been a pose to try to fool people who genuinely wanted the invasion to be legal - but were too stupid to see for themselves that it wasn't.

Of course, a number of the people in that category include the Labour MPs who voted for it after hearing the Prime Minister and the Attorney General assure them that it was in line with what international law required. Many of those MPs are now very angry at their own stupidity. They have deflected their anger on to the Prime Minister and the Attorney General for not sharing the confidential advice that was released last week.

This is simply a further demonstration of their own idiocy, for there was nothing in that confidential advice that was not obvious at the time of the Commons vote. It was extremely easy to work out that the invasion was incompatible with international law. If that law has a guiding principle, it is that the invasion of one country by another in order to replace its ruler is a flagrant violation of state sovereignty.

The Prime Minister's actions show that he has never regarded "conformity with international law" as critically important. He has, in the past, been quite willing to get involved in military expeditions that did not have explicit UN approval - the test for their acceptability under international law. The toppling of the regime in Sierra Leone, the bombing of Kosovo and the bombing of Saddam in Operation Desert Fox in 1998 are all examples, and ones of which he insists he is proud.

Clare Short and Robin Cook, two ministers who resigned over the illegality of the Iraq invasion in 2003, were enthusiasts for the equally illegal Desert Fox in 1998. But in that case, a Democrat - good old Bill Cinton - was in the White House. In 2003, its occupant was a Republican. To get over Labour MPs' qualms about associating themselves with George W. Bush, Tony Blair had to pretend that international law licensed America's military action.

I do not believe that the Prime Minister cynically exploited his MPs' stupidity by his pretence: the first person he fooled by his sophistry was himself. A self-deluding sophist is not an ideal character to have as the leader of our country: it is what we will get if we re-elect Tony Blair and Labour next week.


---------------------------
Everyman Standing Order 01: In the Face of Tyranny; Everybody Stands, Nobody Runs.
Everyman Standing Order 02: Everyman is Responsible for Energy and Security.
Everyman Standing Order 03: Everyman knows Timing is Critical in any Movement.
   

Group: Professor
Hero Member
*****

Posts: 2502
Everyman decries immorality
Al Qaeda: The Database

http://www.globalresearch.ca/al-qaeda-the-database-2/24738

Global Research Editor’s Note

This article originally published by Global Research in 2005 sheds light on the nature of Al Qaeda, an intelligence construct used by Washington to destabilize and destroy sovereign countries, while sustaining the illusion of  an outside enemy, which threatens the security of the Western World.

In recent developments, the Obama administration has intimated that it will be supporting “moderate al Qaeda rebels” in Syria in its “counter-terrorism”  campaign (i.e. bombing raids) allegedly against the ISIS,  formerly known as al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI).

Al Qaeda goes after Al Qaeda? The fact of the matter is that both al Nusra and the Islamic State (ISIS) are supported by Washington and its allies.

September 4, 2015

*       *       *

Shortly before his untimely death, former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook told the House of Commons that “Al Qaeda” is not really a terrorist group but a database of international mujaheddin and arms smugglers used by the CIA and Saudis to funnel guerrillas, arms, and money into Soviet-occupied Afghanistan. Courtesy of World Affairs, a journal based in New Delhi, WMR can bring you an important excerpt from an Apr.-Jun. 2004 article by Pierre-Henry Bunel, a former agent for French military intelligence.

“I first heard about Al-Qaida while I was attending the Command and Staff course in Jordan. I was a French officer at that time and the French Armed Forces had close contacts and cooperation with Jordan . . .

“Two of my Jordanian colleagues were experts in computers. They were air defense officers. Using computer science slang, they introduced a series of jokes about students’ punishment.

“For example, when one of us was late at the bus stop to leave the Staff College, the two officers used to tell us: ‘You’ll be noted in ‘Q eidat il-Maaloomaat’ which meant ‘You’ll be logged in the information database.’ Meaning ‘You will receive a warning . . .’ If the case was more severe, they would used to talk about ‘Q eidat i-Taaleemaat.’ Meaning ‘the decision database.’ It meant ‘you will be punished.’ For the worst cases they used to speak of logging in ‘Al Qaida.’

“In the early 1980s the Islamic Bank for Development, which is located in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, like the Permanent Secretariat of the Islamic Conference Organization, bought a new computerized system to cope with its accounting and communication requirements. At the time the system was more sophisticated than necessary for their actual needs.

“It was decided to use a part of the system’s memory to host the Islamic Conference’s database. It was possible for the countries attending to access the database by telephone: an Intranet, in modern language. The governments of the member-countries as well as some of their embassies in the world were connected to that network.

“[According to a Pakistani major] the database was divided into two parts, the information file where the participants in the meetings could pick up and send information they needed, and the decision file where the decisions made during the previous sessions were recorded and stored. In Arabic, the files were called, ‘Q eidat il-Maaloomaat’ and ‘Q eidat i-Taaleemaat.’ Those two files were kept in one file called in Arabic ‘Q eidat ilmu’ti’aat’ which is the exact translation of the English word database. But the Arabs commonly used the short word Al Qaida which is the Arabic word for “base.” The military air base of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia is called ‘q eidat ‘riyadh al ‘askariya.’ Q eida means “a base” and “Al Qaida” means “the base.”

“In the mid-1980s, Al Qaida was a database located in computer and dedicated to the communications of the Islamic Conference’s secretariat.

“In the early 1990s, I was a military intelligence officer in the Headquarters of the French Rapid Action Force. Because of my skills in Arabic my job was also to translate a lot of faxes and letters seized or intercepted by our intelligence services . . . We often got intercepted material sent by Islamic networks operating from the UK or from Belgium.

“These documents contained directions sent to Islamic armed groups in Algeria or in France. The messages quoted the sources of statements to be exploited in the redaction of the tracts or leaflets, or to be introduced in video or tapes to be sent to the media. The most commonly quoted sources were the United Nations, the non-aligned countries, the UNHCR and . . . Al Qaida.

“Al Qaida remained the data base of the Islamic Conference. Not all member countries of the Islamic Conference are ‘rogue states’ and many Islamic groups could pick up information from the databases. It was but natural for Osama Bin Laden to be connected to this network. He is a member of an important family in the banking and business world.

“Because of the presence of ‘rogue states,’ it became easy for terrorist groups to use the email of the database. Hence, the email of Al Qaida was used, with some interface system, providing secrecy, for the families of the mujaheddin to keep links with their children undergoing training in Afghanistan, or in Libya or in the Beqaa valley, Lebanon. Or in action anywhere in the battlefields where the extremists sponsored by all the ‘rogue states’ used to fight. And the ‘rogue states’ included Saudi Arabia. When Osama bin Laden was an American agent in Afghanistan, the Al Qaida Intranet was a good communication system through coded or covert messages.

Meet “Al Qaeda”

“Al Qaida was neither a terrorist group nor Osama bin Laden’s personal property . . . The terrorist actions in Turkey in 2003 were carried out by Turks and the motives were local and not international, unified, or joint. These crimes put the Turkish government in a difficult position vis-a-vis the British and the Israelis. But the attacks certainly intended to ‘punish’ Prime Minister Erdogan for being a ‘toot tepid’ Islamic politician.

” . . . In the Third World the general opinion is that the countries using weapons of mass destruction for economic purposes in the service of imperialism are in fact ‘rogue states,” specially the US and other NATO countries.

” Some Islamic economic lobbies are conducting a war against the ‘liberal” economic lobbies. They use local terrorist groups claiming to act on behalf of Al Qaida. On the other hand, national armies invade independent countries under the aegis of the UN Security Council and carry out pre-emptive wars. And the real sponsors of these wars are not governments but the lobbies concealed behind them.

“The truth is, there is no Islamic army or terrorist group called Al Qaida. And any informed intelligence officer knows this. But there is a propaganda campaign to make the public believe in the presence of an identified entity representing the ‘devil’ only in order to drive the ‘TV watcher’ to accept a unified international leadership for a war against terrorism. The country behind this propaganda is the US and the lobbyists for the US war on terrorism are only interested in making money.”

In yet another example of what happens to those who challenge the system, in December 2001, Maj. Pierre-Henri Bunel was convicted by a secret French military court of passing classified documents that identified potential NATO bombing targets in Serbia to a Serbian agent during the Kosovo war in 1998. Bunel’s case was transferred from a civilian court to keep the details of the case classified. Bunel’s character witnesses and psychologists notwithstanding, the system “got him” for telling the truth about Al Qaeda and who has actually been behind the terrorist attacks commonly blamed on that group.

It is noteworthy that that Yugoslav government, the government with whom Bunel was asserted by the French government to have shared information, claimed that Albanian and Bosnian guerrillas in the Balkans were being backed by elements of “Al Qaeda.” We now know that these guerrillas were being backed by money provided by the Bosnian Defense Fund, an entity established as a special fund at Bush-influenced Riggs Bank and directed by Richard Perle and Douglas Feith.

French officer Maj. Pierre-Henri Bunel, who knew the truth about “Al Qaeda” — Another target of the neo-cons.

The struggle against terrorism cannot be won by military means

Friday 8 July 2005 15.00 BST

http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/jul/08/july7.development

7 July London attacks

I have rarely seen the Commons so full and so silent as when it met yesterday to hear of the London bombings. A forum that often is raucous and rowdy was solemn and grave. A chamber that normally is a bear pit of partisan emotions was united in shock and sorrow. Even Ian Paisley made a humane plea to the press not to repeat the offence that occurred in Northern Ireland when journalists demanded comment from relatives before they were informed that their loved ones were dead.

The immediate response to such human tragedy must be empathy with the pain of those injured and the grief of those bereaved. We recoil more deeply from loss of life in such an atrocity because we know the unexpected disappearance of partners, children and parents must be even harder to bear than a natural death. It is sudden, and therefore there is no farewell or preparation for the blow. Across London today there are relatives whose pain may be more acute because they never had the chance to offer or hear last words of affection.

It is arbitrary and therefore an event that changes whole lives, which turn on the accident of momentary decisions. How many people this morning ask themselves how different it might have been if their partner had taken the next bus or caught an earlier tube?

But perhaps the loss is hardest to bear because it is so difficult to answer the question why it should have happened. This weekend we will salute the heroism of the generation that defended Britain in the last war. In advance of the commemoration there have been many stories told of the courage of those who risked their lives and sometimes lost their lives to defeat fascism. They provide moving, humbling examples of what the human spirit is capable, but at least the relatives of the men and women who died then knew what they were fighting for. What purpose is there to yesterday's senseless murders? Who could possibly imagine that they have a cause that might profit from such pointless carnage?

At the time of writing, no group has surfaced even to explain why they launched the assault. Sometime over the next few days we may be offered a website entry or a video message attempting to justify the impossible, but there is no language that can supply a rational basis for such arbitrary slaughter. The explanation, when it is offered, is likely to rely not on reason but on the declaration of an obsessive fundamentalist identity that leaves no room for pity for victims who do not share that identity.

Yesterday the prime minister described the bombings as an attack on our values as a society. In the next few days we should remember that among those values are tolerance and mutual respect for those from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. Only the day before, London was celebrating its coup in winning the Olympic Games, partly through demonstrating to the world the success of our multicultural credentials. Nothing would please better those who planted yesterday's bombs than for the atrocity to breed suspicion and hostility to minorities in our own community. Defeating the terrorists also means defeating their poisonous belief that peoples of different faiths and ethnic origins cannot coexist.

In the absence of anyone else owning up to yesterday's crimes, we will be subjected to a spate of articles analysing the threat of militant Islam. Ironically they will fall in the same week that we recall the tenth anniversary of the massacre at Srebrenica, when the powerful nations of Europe failed to protect 8,000 Muslims from being annihilated in the worst terrorist act in Europe of the past generation.

Osama bin Laden is no more a true representative of Islam than General Mladic, who commanded the Serbian forces, could be held up as an example of Christianity. After all, it is written in the Qur'an that we were made into different peoples not that we might despise each other, but that we might understand each other.

Bin Laden was, though, a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies. Throughout the 80s he was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Al-Qaida, literally "the database", was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians. Inexplicably, and with disastrous consequences, it never appears to have occurred to Washington that once Russia was out of the way, Bin Laden's organisation would turn its attention to the west.

The danger now is that the west's current response to the terrorist threat compounds that original error. So long as the struggle against terrorism is conceived as a war that can be won by military means, it is doomed to fail. The more the west emphasises confrontation, the more it silences moderate voices in the Muslim world who want to speak up for cooperation. Success will only come from isolating the terrorists and denying them support, funds and recruits, which means focusing more on our common ground with the Muslim world than on what divides us.

The G8 summit is not the best-designed forum in which to launch such a dialogue with Muslim countries, as none of them is included in the core membership. Nor do any of them make up the outer circle of select emerging economies, such as China, Brazil and India, which are also invited to Gleneagles. We are not going to address the sense of marginalisation among Muslim countries if we do not make more of an effort to be inclusive of them in the architecture of global governance.

But the G8 does have the opportunity in its communique today to give a forceful response to the latest terrorist attack. That should include a statement of their joint resolve to hunt down those who bear responsibility for yesterday's crimes. But it must seize the opportunity to address the wider issues at the root of terrorism.

In particular, it would be perverse if the focus of the G8 on making poverty history was now obscured by yesterday's bombings. The breeding grounds of terrorism are to be found in the poverty of back streets, where fundamentalism offers a false, easy sense of pride and identity to young men who feel denied of any hope or any economic opportunity for themselves. A war on world poverty may well do more for the security of the west than a war on terror.

And in the privacy of their extensive suites, yesterday's atrocities should prompt heart-searching among some of those present. President Bush is given to justifying the invasion of Iraq on the grounds that by fighting terrorism abroad, it protects the west from having to fight terrorists at home. Whatever else can be said in defence of the war in Iraq today, it cannot be claimed that it has protected us from terrorism on our soil.

r.cook@guardian.co.uk

Mystery death of key MP witness in Diana's 'murder'

http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/339807/Mystery-death-of-key-MP-witness-in-Diana-s-murder

POLICE probing a possible SAS link to Princess Diana’s death are being thwarted because of the mysterious death of a top UK politician.

By Richard Spillett / Published 20th September 2013

Robin Cook, who was Foreign Secretary when Diana died, would have had the ultimate say about any plan to kill her.

So detectives leading the new Scotland Yard inquiry into the Princess’s death would have been anxious to question him.

But the apparently fit and healthy Mr Cook died in 2005 while walking on a remote Scottish mountainside.

A helicopter took 30 minutes to get to the scene after he tumbled just 8ft down a ridge.

Mr Cook’s wife, Gaynor, did not get in the helicopter and was instead left to walk down the mountain.

By the time she got to Raigmore Hospital in Inverness, her husband had already been pronounced dead. A heart attack was blamed. He was 59.

Mr Cook died a year before the conclusion of Operation Paget, the Met’s official inquiry into Diana’s death, and two years before the official inquest.

His death had a huge effect on efforts by French authorities to get to the bottom of Diana’s car crash horror in central Paris in 1997.

A senior French judicial source said: “It would have been important for us to question Mr Cook about these dramatic developments.

“If the accusation is that he was the man who may have sanctioned an attack, then of course his answers would be crucial. So many lines of inquiry led to him and his office.”

Former head of MI6 Sir Richard Dearlove testified on oath at the Diana inquest in 2007 that Mr Cook would have been required to issue a “Class Seven Authorisation”.

This would have unleashed an armed unit with a “licence to kill”, in the kind of plot a former SAS soldier has said was played out in the Alma Tunnel.

Diana’s Mercedes smashed into the underpass wall, killing her boyfriend Dodi Fayed and their French chauffeur Henri Paul.

An SAS sniper, known only as Soldier N, has since said Diana was murdered, adding to the growing belief that her death may not have been an accident.

Around 30 SAS soldiers who were serving in 1997 have now been re-interviewed in an internal probe.

On April 7, 2008, an inquest jury concluded that Diana and Dodi were unlawfully killed by the “grossly negligent” driving of Henri Paul and pursuing paparazzi photographers, but such findings have been hotly disputed.

Now it is argued that Diana was murdered when a piercing light was shone directly at the car she was travelling in.

Soldier N’s ex-wife told Scotland Yard detectives last month that her former husband decided to confide all to her after taking Prince William, then 26, on an advanced driving course in 2008.

He told his wife he already knew of the alleged plot to kill her, but a face-to-face encounter with the young prince convinced him to open up for the first time.


---------------------------
Everyman Standing Order 01: In the Face of Tyranny; Everybody Stands, Nobody Runs.
Everyman Standing Order 02: Everyman is Responsible for Energy and Security.
Everyman Standing Order 03: Everyman knows Timing is Critical in any Movement.
   

Group: Professor
Hero Member
*****

Posts: 2502
Everyman decries immorality
UK forces EU to lift embargo on Syria rebel arms

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/may/28/uk-forced-eu-embargo-syria-rebel-arms

Europe's sanctions regime against Syria was plunged into uncertainty after Britain, backed by France, forced a lifting of the EU arms embargo on what it identifies as the moderate opposition to President Bashar al-Assad.

Tuesday 28 May 2013 01.34 BST

Britain claimed victory in a long day of acrimonious negotiations, winning an easing of the arms embargo. The vast majority of EU states opposed the shift, but assented in order to preserve a semblance of unified policy.

A meeting of EU foreign ministers descended into recrimination with a vast majority against lifting the arms embargo, but William Hague, the foreign secretary, blocked a compromise deal. Austria, the biggest opponent of the British aim, reacted bitterly, stating that the EU negotiations had collapsed and that the Europe-wide sanctions regime would collapse at midnight on Friday.

Hague sounded satisfied, however, although others said 25 of 27 EU governments opposed the Anglo-French policy.

"EU nations agreed to bring the arms embargo on the Syrian opposition to an end. This was the outcome that the United Kingdom wanted. It was a difficult decision for some countries but it was necessary and right to reinforce international efforts to reach a diplomatic solution to the conflict in Syria," Hague said.

By contrast, the Austrian vice-chancellor and foreign minister, Michael Spindelegger, said the talks "have failed … I'm a little annoyed … It's regrettable that we have found no common position."

He added that France joined Britain in demanding a lifting of the arms embargo, but that the other 25 were opposed.

The Dutch said that only two EU countries were thinking of supplying arms to Syria, meaning the UK and France. There was also agreement that Britain would not begin to deliver arms to the Syrian opposition before August, in order to gauge what might happen at the internationally sponsored peace talks in Geneva mooted for next month, although there is no certainty whether they will take place.

The long day of negotiations between the EU's 27 foreign ministers saw Britain and France opposing plans to shelve a decision on arming the opposition until August, while Austria and the Czech Republic spearheaded the opposition to the Anglo-French push, with the Czechs supporting the Israeli line against sending arms to Syria and the Austrians alarmed at the impact on their UN peacekeeping mission in the Golan Heights between Syria and Israel.

Spindelegger said that Vienna would now have to reconsider its deployment on Golan. A withdrawal could see an Israeli rush to fill the UN vacuum, ratcheting up the tension in the region.

Laurent Fabius, the French foreign minister, said Paris supported a decision that would maintain an EU consensus, but would allow "the rebels to have the necessary arms and that the arms could be monitored".

The foreign secretary, William Hague, joined the French in arguing that supplying arms to "moderate" opposition forces would lead to less killing in Syria. Others argued the opposite, that arms supplies would only escalate the conflict.

Several countries – notably Austria, the Czech Republic, Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden – opposed the decision for fear that weapons might fall into the hands of Islamic extremist groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra. Germany has been trying to fashion a compromise.

Guido Westerwelle, the German foreign minister, said he would try to "build bridges", but consensus was elusive with participants delivering contradictory statements. Both Westerwelle and Hague had warned the EU could fail to agree a common position on the sanctions package, which was to expire automatically on Friday.

It appeared that Britain and France had received a green light to go ahead with supplying arms to the Syrian rebels. They have been pressing for a partial lifting of the arms embargo to the moderate sections of the Syrian opposition since last November. Hague has argued that lifting the arms embargo would complement, rather than contradict, a peace process since a militarily strengthened Syrian opposition can force the Syrian president, Assad, to the negotiating table.

Fabius returned early to Paris to meet John Kerry, the US secretary of state, and Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, to try to organise Syrian peace talks in Geneva next month. No date has been set for the talks. It is not clear who will attend.

In Brussels, Turkey's foreign minister voiced strong support for the Anglo-French position. But last week in the US, Ankara was strongly rebuffed in its hawkish position against Assad by the White House.

Oxfam's head of arms control, Anna Macdonald, said: "Allowing the EU arms embargo to end could have devastating consequences. There are no easy answers when trying to stop the bloodshed in Syria, but sending more arms and ammunition clearly isn't one of them.

"Transferring more weapons to Syria can only exacerbate a hellish scenario for civilians. If the UK and France are to live up to their own commitments – including those set out in the new arms trade treaty – they simply must not send weapons to Syria."

The UK-French attempt to lift the arms embargo has not been made any easier by the continued lack of unity within the rebel movement. Talks failed on Sunday to end a factional dispute over proposals to dilute Qatar's influence on rebel forces, with Saudi Arabia angling to play a greater role now that Iranian-backed Hezbollah is openly fighting for Assad.

The dispute over how to respond to the civil war in Syria has exposed deep divisions in Europe. Senior European officials say much of the debate is "hypocritical" because some of the countries calling for a lifting of the embargo do not have the weapons to deliver or have no intention of taking part. They also point out that the White House and the State Department appear to be similarly split between hawks and doves.

Syria: William Hague reiterates support for rebels as new doubts emerge

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10290063/Syria-William-Hague-reiterates-support-for-rebels-as-new-doubts-emerge.html

William Hague reiterated Britain's support for Syrian rebel groups as fresh doubts emerged about whether it was possible to identify a moderate rebel grouping in the event of the fall of Bashar al-Assad.


By Peter Foster, Washington

7:54PM BST 05 Sep 2013

"The people of Syria should be in no doubt that the UK stands fully behind the Syrian National opposition – the sole legitimate representatives of the Syrian people," Mr Hague said following a meeting with Ahmad Al-Jarba, the president of the Syrian National Coalition.

However the difficulty of backing rebel groups was highlighted by the emergence of a highly disturbing video showing one small rebel band carrying out the summary execution of seven Syrian soldiers in the province of Idlib last April.

The video, which was obtained by the New York Times from the disaffected aide of the rebel commander who ordered the killings, has highlighted the debate in the US over whether it is really possible to identify a 'good' faction in the fragmented rebel movement in Syria.

Although there are up 1,000 rebel groups, the White House and supporters of US action in Syria have argued that there is a moderate core that could be used to create a political settlement in Syria after the fall of the Assad regime.

John Kerry, the US secretary of state, has said that only "15 to 20 per cent" of rebels could be described as "bad guys", while John McCain, the pro-intervention Republican senator who visited Syria earlier this year to meet rebel groups, has also been promising that there is a moderate core of rebels.

Mr Hague described the SNC as "the best possible hope for a political solution to the crisis and for a future Syria which is stable and democratic", however the video has illustrated complexity of the situation on the ground, where rebel groups are not clearly divided on secular and jihadist lines, with many committing extortion, kidnapping and executions.

The New York Times reported that the rebels in the pictures – which were picked up by US television networks yesterday - may also have received weapons from the Western-supported Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army.

The rebel commander in the video, Abdul Samad Issa, 37, who is also known as "The Uncle", was reportedly motivated to carry out the executions after capturing the Syrian soldiers and discovering videos of the rape of Syrian civilians on their mobile phones.

He was also partly motivated by the fact that his father was killed in the 1982 crackdown against Muslim Brotherhood rebels by Hafez al-Assad, the father of Syria's current president, further illustrating the tensions arising out Syria's deeply troubled recent history.

A western diplomatic source, speaking to a select group of reporters last month, said that less than "30 per cent" of rebels fighting in Syria are palatable to Britain. He added that the rebels in that category were not in a coordinated group.

Having given this damming assessment of the armed opposition, he said a political solution remained the best option: "The alternatives to a political deal are all unattractive, Saddam '91 scenario; Somalisation; or splitting up the country".


---------------------------
Everyman Standing Order 01: In the Face of Tyranny; Everybody Stands, Nobody Runs.
Everyman Standing Order 02: Everyman is Responsible for Energy and Security.
Everyman Standing Order 03: Everyman knows Timing is Critical in any Movement.
   

Group: Professor
Hero Member
*****

Posts: 2502
Everyman decries immorality
Does Nato want regime change in Libya?

http://www.channel4.com/news/does-nato-want-regime-change-in-libya

With leaders of the UK, the US and France calling on Colonel Gaddafi to step down, a British Conservative MP wants a recall of parliament amid fears that Nato is set on regime change in Libya.

One day after Nato planes launched air strikes on Tripoli, a Conservative MP has requested the recall of Parliament amid fears that the allied mission in Libya has become focused on regime change, which is illegal under international law.

John Baron, who was the only Tory MP to vote against military action in Libya, believes that while the original emphasis of the Libyan mission was the protection of civilians and the provision of humanitarian aid, it is now the removal of Colonel Gaddafi.

Mr Baron's decision to write to the Commons Speaker requesting a recall was prompted in part by an article penned jointly by Prime Minister Cameron, President Obama and President Sarkozy, which appeared in today's Times.

In the piece, which is also published in the Washington Post and Le Figaro, the leaders of the UK, the US and France state:

"Our duty and our mandate under UN Security Council Resolution 1973 is to protect civilians, and we are doing that. It is not to remove Qaddafi (sic) by force.

"The mission in Libya has fundamentally changed into one of regime change."
John Baron, Conservative MP for Billericay.


"But it is impossible to imagine a future for Libya with Qaddafi (sic) in place."

The Conservative MP for Billericay told Channel 4 News: “The article confirms that the mission has fundamentally changed into one of regime change, which is illegal under international law.

"Had Parliament known this at the time, the original debate might have taken a different course. I believe I'm not the only one who has questions to ask the Government."

The original UN Resolution 1973 demands an immediate ceasefire between pro-government forces and rebels in Libya. It authorises the international community to establish a no-fly zone over the country and to use all means necessary short of foreign occupation to protect civilians.

Former Shadow Home Secretary David Davis is also in favour of a recall of Parliament. He told BBC Radio: “I think Cameron has done the right thing at every step so far. To go to the next phase, he has to get parliamentary authority."

But Lord (Mark) Malloch-Brown, interviewed for Channel 4 News, said he believed the text of today’s newspaper article made it clear that military activity was limited to the protection of civilians.

"They're right to say their continued presence is going to contribute to the weakening of the regime, but they are careful not to say that they’re going to go over the line of the resolution and use military means to displace him," the former UN Deputy Secretary General and Foreign Office minister told Alex Thomson.

"Cameron, Obama and Sarkozy are careful not to say they're going to use military means to displace Gaddafi."
Lord Malloch-Brown, former Foreign Office minister


Lord Malloch-Brown disagreed that the contents of the Obama-Cameron-Sarkozy letter merited a recall of parliament, but he described the current military operation as "a little bit up a creek without a paddle" because it was failing on a humanitarian level and had no exit strategy.

The House of Commons is currently in Easter recess. MPs are not due to return until 26 April. The Commons debated military action on 21 March, four days after UN Security Council Resolution 1973 was passed.

Parliament has been recalled in recent years to debate the 1982 Argentine invasion of the Falklands, the 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States and claims in 2002 that Iraq was in possession of weapons of mass destruction.

Libya war: strike against Gaddafi


http://www.channel4.com/news/libya-war-strike-against-gaddafi

In-depth analysis of Libya in turmoil as coalition forces support rebels fighting for an end to Gaddafi's 40-year rule.


---------------------------
Everyman Standing Order 01: In the Face of Tyranny; Everybody Stands, Nobody Runs.
Everyman Standing Order 02: Everyman is Responsible for Energy and Security.
Everyman Standing Order 03: Everyman knows Timing is Critical in any Movement.
   

Group: Professor
Hero Member
*****

Posts: 2502
Everyman decries immorality
Regime Change as American as Apple Pie

http://sputniknews.com/columnists/20150929/1027737498/us-regime-change-crimes.html

Finian Cunningham 19:34 29.09.2015

Clandestine American-led interventions have fuelled the explosion in terror networks across the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa. Yet amid this American legacy of international violence, Obama was charged with painting a rose-tinted view of the world that was breath-taking in its distortion and absurdity.

US President Barack Obama is someone to almost pity. For he has the unenviable task of standing before the nations of the world and smugly spout endless falsehoods — as he did, yet again, during his address to the UN General Assembly.

By contrast, Russian President Vladimir Putin in his address to the UN may not have displayed the same oratorical flourishes as Obama, but far more importantly Putin spoke about some of the most pressing international problems with words that were the plain truth.

When Putin spoke about the UN and international law being undermined by "exceptional" unilateral actions of the United States, he was able to put his finger on the crux of why conflict, chaos and terrorism are raging in so many parts of the world.

And if we are trying to fix these problems, genuinely, then what the world needs is an accurate diagnosis. Putin delivered that, while Obama just added further layers of obfuscation and misinformation, making such problems ever-more insoluble.

As Putin clearly indicated, illegal US-led regime-change operations that subvert international law and the UN Charter are at the root of ongoing, widespread conflicts, from Afghanistan to Iraq, from Libya to Syria and to Ukraine.

These clandestine American-led interventions have also fuelled the explosion in terror networks across the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa. Putin provided the most logical, rational and credible explanation that allows for collective solutions. Supporting the sovereign government of Syria to defeat foreign-backed terrorism in that country is one such solution.

Yet amid this American legacy of international violence, Obama was charged with painting a rose-tinted view of the world that was breath-taking in its distortion and absurdity.

On Syria, the American president sought to ascribe the violence and growth of terrorism in that country as being due to "tyrannical" Bashar al-Assad who "attacked peaceful protesters" back in 2011. This falsification by Obama flies in the face of admissions by Washington — in declassified documents — that it hatched secret plans for regime change in Syria as early as 2006.

The Pentagon has also admitted in declassified documents that it sponsored jihadist extremists like Islamic State to wage war against the Assad government for the "wilful" objective of regime change. In both instances, the US government indicts itself of heinous crimes.

Nevertheless, Obama blithely regaled the UN with claims that his government is "supporting the steady emergence of strong democracies accountable to their people instead of any foreign power" — while, unbelievably, ignoring the long and execrable history of American-sponsored regime change in every corner of the globe.

This American criminal expertise in violating international law and democratic rights of nations spans at least a century. During the early 20th century decades, Major General Smedley Butler in his book, ‘War is a Racket', described how the Pentagon's military muscle was used to ransack Latin America and the Caribbean to install despotic regimes in order to make the hemisphere "safe" for Wall Street banks and US corporations.

Then following the Second World War, the US ruling class applied their regime-change dexterity in every continent over the subsequent seven decades up to the present day. From the early postwar European states of Greece, Italy and France where nationalist or socialist governments were thwarted or subverted, right up to the most recent cases of Libya, Syria and Ukraine.

In between, we have the notorious cases of US subversion and coups in Guatemala, Iran, Cuba, Brazil, Indonesia, Chile, Nicaragua, Honduras — to mention just a few. For a complete list of scores of American dirty operations across the world, see William Blum's book ‘Killing Hope'.

Obama describes US involvement in Libya in 2011 as "helping to prevent a massacre"; and he claims Washington is helping to resolve conflict in Syria and supporting democracy in Ukraine. But in each case, as in countless other countries down through the decades, Washington's finger-prints are all over the crime scenes and point to its illegal schemes for overthrowing governments and "deterring democracy", as Noam Chomsky puts it.

But perhaps the ultimate regime change that American rulers engaged in was not against some far off African, Asian or Latin American land.

The most audacious act of criminality was against one of their own democratically elected governments.

In 1963, the brutal assassination of President John F Kennedy as he drove through Dallas in a motorcade was unmistakably a covert regime-change operation. The slaying of Kennedy happened only three weeks after US intelligence were implicated in the murder of Washington's puppet-dictator in South Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem.

Kennedy, whose policies were viewed as being anti-war and amenable to mediation with the Soviet Union and revolutionary Cuba, had made powerful enemies within the Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon's military-industrial complex. The sophistication and political context of Kennedy's assassination, the vast official cover-up, including the murder of the alleged assassin, the patsy Lee Harvey Oswald, all point to a covert operation to get rid off the president.

American corporate-controlled news media to this day treat the subject of who really killed Kennedy as an off-limits "conspiracy theory". But reading an array of investigative literature, such as James Douglass' ‘JFK and the Unspeakable', as well as testimony of attorney, the late Jim Garrison, it is scarcely disputable that President Kennedy was assassinated by powerful and secretive elements within the American ruling class.

The objective was to replace Kennedy with a president who would be more obedient to the strategic interests of the American military-industrial complex. Kennedy's successor, Lyndon B Johnson, was such a figure, paving the way for the escalation of the Vietnam War in the mid-1960s and heightened hostilities towards the Soviet Union and Cuba, including numerous attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro.

Returning to the UN address delivered by Barack Obama this week, at one point he bragged: "I lead the strongest military that the world has ever known, and I will never hesitate to protect my country or our allies, unilaterally and by force where necessary."

This is the kind of unquestioning militarism and use of unilateral military force that America's ruling class expects from White House occupants. Breaking international law, violating the UN Charter and implementing regime change — no matter how murderous — and then spouting lies with squeaky clean rhetoric, these are the qualifications that an American president must demonstrate to the dark, ruling forces within his country.

Otherwise, the fate of an independent, democratic leader would be the same as that of JFK. For regime change, and all its attendant criminality, is as American as mama's homemade apple pie.

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Sputnik.


---------------------------
Everyman Standing Order 01: In the Face of Tyranny; Everybody Stands, Nobody Runs.
Everyman Standing Order 02: Everyman is Responsible for Energy and Security.
Everyman Standing Order 03: Everyman knows Timing is Critical in any Movement.
   

Group: Professor
Hero Member
*****

Posts: 2502
Everyman decries immorality
Legality of the Iraq War

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_the_Iraq_War

The legality of the invasion and occupation of Iraq has been widely debated since the United States, United Kingdom, and a coalition of other countries launched the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The then United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in September 2004 that: "From our point of view and the UN Charter point of view, it [the war] was illegal."[1][2] The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court reported in February 2006 that he had received 240 communications in connection with the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 which alleged that various war crimes[specify] had been committed[citation needed]. Many of the political leaders of the US and UK have argued the war was legal[citation needed], while many legal experts[who?] and other international leaders[who?] have argued that it was illegal[citation needed]. US and UK officials have argued that existing UN Security Council resolutions related to the 1991 Gulf War and the subsequent ceasefire (660, 678), and to later inspections of Iraqi weapons programs (1441), had already authorized the invasion.[3] Critics of the invasion have challenged both of these assertions, arguing that an additional Security Council resolution, which the US and UK failed to obtain, would have been necessary to specifically authorize the invasion.[1][4][5]

The UN Security Council, as outlined in Article 39 of the UN Charter, has the ability to rule on the legality of the war, but has yet not been asked by any UN member nation to do so. The United States and the United Kingdom have veto power in the Security Council, so action by the Security Council is highly improbable even if the issue were to be raised. Despite this, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) may ask that the International Court of Justice (ICJ)—"the principal judicial organ of the United Nations" (Article 92)—give either an 'advisory opinion' or 'judgement' on the legality of the war. Indeed, the UNGA asked the ICJ to give an 'advisory opinion' on "the legal consequences arising from the construction of the wall being built by Israel", by its resolution A/RES/ES-10/14,[6] as recently as 12 December 2003; despite opposition from permanent members of the Security Council. It achieved this by sitting in tenth 'emergency special session', under the framework of the 'Uniting for Peace' resolution. The ICJ had previously found against the US for its actions in Nicaragua,[7] a finding the US refused to comply with.

The United Nations Charter is the foundation of modern international law.[10] The UN Charter is a treaty ratified by the US and its principal coalition allies in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which are therefore legally bound by its terms. Article 2(4) of the UN Charter generally bans the use of force by states except when carefully circumscribed conditions are met, stating:

    All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.[11]

This rule was "enshrined in the United Nations Charter in 1945 for a good reason: to prevent states from using force as they felt so inclined", said Louise Doswald-Beck, Secretary-General International Commission of Jurists.[12]

Therefore, in the absence of an armed attack against the US or the coalition members, any legal use of force, or any legal threat of the use of force, had to be supported by a UN security Council resolution authorizing member states to use force against Iraq.[10] However, the US government stated that an armed attack by Iraq did occur against the US and its coalition partners as demonstrated by the assassination attempt on former US President George H. W. Bush in 1993 and firing on coalition aircraft enforcing the no-fly zones over Northern and Southern Iraq since the 1991 Gulf War ceasefire agreement. Under Article 51 of the UN Charter, the US reserved the right to self-defense, even without a UN mandate, as were the cases in the bombing of Iraq in June 1993 in retaliation for Hussein's attempt on former President Bush's life and again in 1996 in retaliation for Hussein's targeting of American aircraft patrolling the no-fly zones over Northern and Southern Iraq and the launching of a major offensive against the city of Irbil in Iraqi Kurdistan in violation of UNSC Resolution 688 prohibiting repression of Iraq's ethnic minorities.[13][14]

The U.S. and UK governments, along with others, also stated (as is detailed in the first four paragraphs of the joint resolution)[15] that the invasion was entirely legal because it was already authorized by existing United Nations Security Council resolutions and a resumption of previously temporarily suspended hostilities, and not a war of aggression as the United States and UK were acting as agents for the defense of Kuwait in response to Iraq's 1990 invasion.[16][17] Some International legal experts, including the International Commission of Jurists, the U.S.-based National Lawyers' Guild,[18] a group of 31 Canadian law professors, and the U.S.-based Lawyers' Committee on Nuclear Policy have found this legal rationale to be untenable, and are of the view that the invasion was not supported by UN resolution and was therefore illegal.[19][20][21]

United Nations Charter

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Charter

The Charter of the United Nations is the foundational treaty of the intergovernmental organization; the United Nations.[1] It was signed at the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center in San Francisco, United States, on 26 June 1945, by 50 of the 51 original member countries. (Poland, the other original member, which was not represented at the conference, signed it two months later.) It entered into force on 24 October 1945, after being ratified by the original five permanent members of the Security Council—the Republic of China (later replaced by the People's Republic of China), France, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (later replaced by the Russian Federation), the United Kingdom, and the United States—and a majority of the other signatories.

As a charter, it is a constituent treaty, and all members are bound by its articles. Furthermore, Article 103 of the Charter states that obligations to the United Nations prevail over all other treaty obligations.[1][2] Most countries in the world have now ratified the Charter.

The Charter consists of a preamble and a series of articles grouped into chapters.[1]

The preamble consists of two principal parts. The first part contains a general call for the maintenance of peace and international security and respect for human rights. The second part of the preamble is a declaration in a contractual style that the governments of the peoples of the United Nations have agreed to the Charter and it is the first international document regarding human rights.

    Chapter I sets forth the purposes of the United Nations, including the important provisions of the maintenance of international peace and security.
    Chapter II defines the criteria for membership in the United Nations.
    Chapters III-XV, the bulk of the document, describe the organs and institutions of the UN and their respective powers.
    Chapters XVI and Chapter XVII describe arrangements for integrating the UN with established international law.
    Chapters XVIII and Chapter XIX provide for amendment and ratification of the Charter.

The following chapters deal with the enforcement powers of UN bodies:

    Chapter VI describes the Security Council's power to investigate and mediate disputes;
    Chapter VII describes the Security Council's power to authorize economic, diplomatic, and military sanctions, as well as the use of military force, to resolve disputes;
    Chapter VIII makes it possible for regional arrangements to maintain peace and security within their own region;
    Chapters IX and Chapter X describe the UN's powers for economic and social cooperation, and the Economic and Social Council that oversees these powers;
    Chapters XII and Chapter XIII describe the Trusteeship Council, which oversaw decolonization;
    Chapters XIV and Chapter XV establish the powers of, respectively, the International Court of Justice and the United Nations Secretariat.
    Chapters XVI through Chapter XIX deal respectively with XVI: miscellaneous provisions, XVII: transitional security arrangements related to World War II, XVIII: the charter amendment process, and XIX: ratification of the charter


---------------------------
Everyman Standing Order 01: In the Face of Tyranny; Everybody Stands, Nobody Runs.
Everyman Standing Order 02: Everyman is Responsible for Energy and Security.
Everyman Standing Order 03: Everyman knows Timing is Critical in any Movement.
   

Group: Professor
Hero Member
*****

Posts: 2502
Everyman decries immorality
Americans caught ‘red-handed’ in Syria: Analyst

http://presstv.com/Detail/2015/10/07/432428/US-Russia-extremist-groups-redhanded-

Wed Oct 7, 2015 6:1PM

Russia’s successful military intervention against terrorist groups operating in Syria is further proof that the US was supporting extremist groups in the Middle East rather than fighting them, a former American intelligence linguist in Florida says.

Unlike the Russian military strikes, the US-led coalition's war against Daesh (ISIL or ISIS) was ineffective and has produced limited results, Scott Rickard told Press TV on Tuesday.

“Russia has exposed the US façade of creating their own terrorist organization, and now that Russia has decided to obliterate the terrorist organizations that the Americans have been supporting in and around Syria, it’s proven to be a very good move strategically,” Rickard said.

Russia started its air campaign in Syria last week to target terrorist groups fighting the Syrian government.

Russian warships also began to launch missiles into Syria from the Caspian Sea on Wednesday.

The missiles mark a significant escalation of Russian involvement in the region and a growing crisis for US foreign policy in Syria.

“The Americans were caught red-handed, exposing the fact that they’ve been allowing multiple locations of ISIS operation to continue without being bombed or interrupted,” Rickard said.

“The particular organizations that the Americans were claiming were moderate rebels were actually feeding the ISIS organizations with weapons and intelligence and so on and so forth and the Russians came in and did a great job,” he added.

A new US intelligence assessment indicates that Russia has targeted militant groups backed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Syria.

Obama administration officials are debating how the United States can come to the aid of its proxy forces on the ground without risking a broader conflict with Moscow.


---------------------------
Everyman Standing Order 01: In the Face of Tyranny; Everybody Stands, Nobody Runs.
Everyman Standing Order 02: Everyman is Responsible for Energy and Security.
Everyman Standing Order 03: Everyman knows Timing is Critical in any Movement.
   
Group: Guest
Obama administration officials are debating how the United States can come to the aid of its proxy forces on the ground without risking a broader conflict with Moscow.

Any US soldier that volunteers or is ordered to perform this suicide mission best get their life insurance papers in order.  It's a lose-lose situation:  They get killed or they escalate things to WWIII.

Hopefully the gang-bangers that have infiltrated the armed forces are the ones sent.  The ones that actually wish to protect and defend the Constitution would better serve this country by becoming milkmen.
   
Sr. Member
****

Posts: 375
   
Group: Guest
Some fuel to the Siria fire:
http://www.infowars.com/psychopaths-are-running-the-world-former-us-marine-blows-whistle-on-syrian-false-flag-exposes-real-agenda-2/

Yes, Ken O'Keefe spells it out very well.  I expect him to spend many a day in the brig for speaking the truth with passion.  Any individual that steps in the way of this greater plan will be crushed like a bug.  The only hope is that everyone still having a functioning brain joins him.  Power is in numbers and once those numbers are gone, it's game over.
   
Group: Guest
Ultimately I think it might have been Russia's threat to shoot down any cruise missiles launched by the US at Syrian targets back a while ago that helped to prevent that, along with strong opposition from the U.S.citizens. U.S. Citizens and U.S. servicemen spoke up against it..

Now the Russians are bombing the  U.S. armed "terrorists" and their Weapons dumps, likely filled with arms supplied by the U.S. to the "Original Rebels" aka "Free Syrian Army" and the "Al Nusra Front" ect.. The Russians see them all as "Terrorists" and have every right to bomb them with Assad asking them to do it, it is legal and the U.S. is pissed about it,, WOW.

Now Iran is sending ground troops to Syria to take back the ground from the U.S. backed Rebels and ISIS alike, after Russian air strikes.

I see no way for the U.S. to counter this without escalating the situation to WW3 status.

Very sad it had to come to this.

..
   

Group: Tinkerer
Hero Member
*****

Posts: 3055
The staged "9/11 Event" enabled the U.S. to embark on a plan
of serious middle east de-stabilization as fulfillment of an AGENDA
developed by Dual-Citizen NeoCons for the State of Israel.

How "They" control the World.

U.S. caught "faking it" in Syria.




---------------------------
For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open.
   

Group: Professor
Hero Member
*****

Posts: 2502
Everyman decries immorality
Now He Tells Us: Poppy Bush Comes (Partially) Clean on Iraq War

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/11/09/now-he-tells-us-poppy-bush-comes-partially-clean-on-iraq-war/

Media reports on Jon Meacham’s biography of George H. W. Bush, the 41st President, have brought me a painful flashback to the deceptive, destructive – yet at the same time highly instructive – years 2002 and 2003, when his son George W. Bush, the 43rd President, attacked Iraq.

Reality should trump rhetoric regarding that godforsaken war – in my view the most unprincipled and consequential foreign policy blunder in U.S. history. This may be reason enough to renew focus on those years because, for many Americans, those events remain cloaked in mystery and misunderstanding.

President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney receive an Oval Office briefing from CIA Director George Tenet. Also present is Chief of Staff Andy Card (on right). (White House photo)

With his candor about his eldest son, the 91-year-old Bush patriarch also has sounded what may be the death knell for the moribund campaign of his younger son Jeb to be president #45. I do not suggest that #41 did that consciously. His unusually unguarded remarks, though, will lead voters to be chary of yet another Bush, if only on the “fool me once … fool me twice” aphorism that Jeb’s big brother had trouble remembering.

Meacham’s Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush will not be available to the hoi polloi until next week.  Details already reported on the critical years of 2002 and 2003, however, permit – I think, rather, dictate – some preliminary analysis, before the Karl Roves of this world create still more “new history.”

The clear and present danger of getting sucked into yet another quagmire or quicksand pool on false pretenses persists. Thus, it seems fitting and proper to review the lead-up to the unprovoked “shock and awe” on Iraq proudly launched in March 2003 by #43, egged on by Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and other white-collar thugs.

Despite the propaganda and more tangible signs of incipient war in Iraq, my former intelligence analyst colleagues and I – with considerable professional experience watching other countries prepare for aggression against others – were finding it difficult to believe that the United States of America would be doing precisely that.

Still harder was it to digest the notion that Washington would do so, absent credible evidence of any immediate threat and would “fix” intelligence to “justify” it. But that, sadly, is what happened. On March 19, 2003, U.S. “shock and awe” lit the sky over Baghdad.

A Dozen Years Later

That was more than 12 ½ years ago.  That not one of the white-collar crooks responsible for the war and ensuing chaos has been held accountable is an indelible blot not only on our country, but also on international law and custom. After all, the U.S./U.K. attack on Iraq fits snugly the definition given to a “war of aggression” as defined by the post-World War II Nuremberg Tribunal. Nuremberg labeled such a war “the supreme international crime, differing from other war crimes only in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”

And the evil continued to accumulate: torture, kidnapping, black prisons, extrajudicial killing, massive invasions of privacy, and even the annulment of such basic human rights as the great writ of habeas corpus that was wrested from England’s King John 800 years ago. And, in the wake of this criminality, bedlam now reigns across large swaths of the Middle East driving millions of refugees into neighboring countries and Europe.

That the U.S. and U.K. leaders who launched the Iraq war have so far escaped apprehension and prosecution might be seen as a sad example of “victor’s justice.” But there are no victors, only victims. The reality that President George W. Bush and his co-conspirators remain unpunished makes a mockery of the commitment to the transcendent importance of evenhanded justice as expressed on Aug. 12, 1945, by Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, the chief U.S. representative at Nuremberg: “We must make clear to the Germans that the wrong for which their fallen leaders are on trial is not that they lost the war, but that they started it.”

Maybe it is partly because I know the elder Bush personally, but it does strike me that, since we are all human, some degree of empathy might be in order. I simply cannot imagine what it must be like to be a former President with a son, also a former President, undeniably responsible for such trespass on law – for such widespread killing, injury and abject misery.

It is something of a stretch, but I have tried to put myself into the shoes of the elder Bush. In them I find myself insecure and struggling – like Jacob – before his dream about wrestling with God. The story in Genesis shows Jacob full of anxiety, despite God’s promise that God would bless his dynasty. He cannot overcome his fear and is powerless to control his fate.

Jacob is aware that he is at a pivotal juncture but he is physically spent. Alone in the wilderness facing death, he collapses into a deep sleep, only to find himself wrestling all night with God. At daybreak he awakes with an injured hip; he is disabled but his life is spared. He had come to grips with God and, in the end, receives God’s blessing of peace.

What author Meacham has written suggests to me the possibility that the sins of the son are being visited on the father, to reverse one familiar Biblical expression.

In these circumstances, the tendency to require that thugs like Cheney and Rumsfeld bear their share of the blame seems quite human. And, to his credit, Bush-41 concedes “the buck stops” at the President. But I sense him thinking – correctly, in my view – that without those two “iron-ass” advisers, things would have been quite different. The son might even have paid more heed to the experienced cautions of the father and his associates.

Sins of Omission

As the senior Bush knows, sins of omission can be as consequential as those of commission. Judging from what he is quoted as saying in Meacham’s book, it appears he decided to make a (sort-of) clean breast of things – okay, call it a Watergate-style “modified, limited hangout,” if you will. But, clearly, Bush has to be painfully aware that he was one of only a handful of people who might have been able to stop the chaos and carnage, had he spoken out publicly in real time.

He does hedge, saying for example that he still believes the attack on Iraq was the right thing to do. But this is a position he staked out years ago and, especially at 91, it may be too much to expect of him that he acknowledge the full implications of what he says elsewhere in the book about the misguided advice of “hardline” Cheney and “arrogant” Rumsfeld together with where, after all, the buck does stop.

My take is that Bush-41 has not completed his wrestle with the truth and with the guilt he may feel for failing to warn the rest of us what to expect from George, Cheney and Rumsfeld as he watched it happen. The elder Bush did use surrogates – including two of his closest and most prominent friends, James Baker, his secretary of state, and Brent Scowcroft, his national security adviser, to speak out against the war.

But here the mainstream media was of no help. Instead of weighing the merits of the strong arguments of Baker, Scowcroft and other experienced foreign policy professionals made against attacking Iraq, the media gave inordinate attention to incessant debates as to whether the seeming surrogates were actually speaking for the elder Bush.

In effect, the media was demanding what they knew Bush senior would almost certainly not do, “Speak for yourself, George H. W. Bush.” He refused to do it; he would not even comment on the critical views expressed by Baker and Scowcroft on Bush-43’s plan to attack Iraq.

Sure, it would have been hard, but at the time Bush senior was only in his late 70s, as he watched his son fall in with bad companions the dishonesty and foolishness leading up to the attack on Iraq.

With his current modified, limited hangout – especially (his richly deserved) criticism of Cheney and Rumsfeld – Bush the elder may be able to live more comfortably with himself and to get past what I believe must be his regret now over having made no public effort to stop the madness back then.

The chronology below includes some of the more important events and may help inform those who have not had the time or inclination to follow the play-by-play as Cheney and Rumsfeld played on the younger Bush’s unabashed preening as “the first war president of the 21st century.”

Keeping a Watching Brief

The elder Bush knew all too well what was happening. He also knew what his son George was capable of – not to mention the inclinations of Cheney, Rumsfeld and other white-collar criminals. To be brutally candid, it is a little late for the family patriarch to be telling us all this – while blaming the Iraq debacle mostly on Cheney and Rumsfeld, quintessentially blameworthy though they are.

Worst still, if Bush-43 is to be believed, Bush senior had guilty foreknowledge of the war-crime attack on Iraq. George W. Bush divulges this in his 2014 Virgil-style paean to his father, “41: A Portrait of My Father,” in which he arrogates to himself Aeneas-like filial devotion. (Friends more cynical than me suggest that 43’s panegyric should be construed as a benign pre-emptive move to prevent the father from blabbing to his biographer.)

In any event, Bush-43 includes the following sentences about informing his father about plans to attack Iraq:  ”We both knew that this was a decision that only the president can make. We did talk about the issue, however. Over Christmas 2002, at Camp David, I did give Dad an update on our strategy.”

By that time, the die had been cast. Frankly, it is as painful as it is instructive to review the flow of key events in the summer and early fall of 2002. But I believe it may be necessary, not only to outline what Bush senior was watching, but also to pre-empt the creation of false history. Here are some selected benchmarks:

July 23, 2002: Tony Blair and his principal national security advisers are briefed at 10 Downing Street by MI-6 chief Richard Dearlove, CIA Director George Tenet’s British counterpart, three days after Dearlove met with Tenet at CIA Headquarters. A participant in the July 23 briefing prepares minutes of the meeting that same day. They are eventually leaked and published in the London Times on May 1, 2005.

The minutes quote Dearlove, Foreign Minister Jack Straw, and Attorney-General Peter Goldsmith.  First Dearlove: “Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD.” [Translation: Saddam Hussein will be accused of having weapons of mass destruction that he could give to terrorists.]

“But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. … The Foreign Secretary said the case [for war] was thin. … The Attorney-General said that the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action.”

August 2002: President George W. Bush spends from August 6 to 31 clearing brush at his ranch in Crawford, Texas. White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card sets up a White House Iraq Group (WHIG) to “educate the public” on the alleged threat from Iraq. The group includes heavy hitters like political adviser Karl Rove, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Bush’s communications director Karen Hughes, and two officials from Dick Cheney’s entourage – Irving Lewis “Scooter” Libby, and Mary Matalin. In his memoir, Cheney notes that both Matalin and Libby “wore two hats” – serving as assistants to both Cheney and the President.

August 2002:
With Bush in Crawford, there is trouble brewing for Cheney, Rumsfeld and others pushing for war on Iraq. Close associates of the elder Bush and other senior foreign policy mavens begin to speak out strongly against an attack on Iraq.

Brent Scowcroft leads off the campaign on Aug. 4 at CBS’s Face the Nation. Next up is former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger with an Aug. 12 Washington Post op-ed titled “Unilateral Attack Will Set Dangerous Precedent.” On Aug. 15, Scowcroft publishes an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal with the non-subtle title: “Don’t Attack Saddam.”

Also on Aug. 15, Lawrence Eagleburger, who served the elder Bush briefly as secretary of state, tells ABC News that unless Saddam Hussein “has his hand on a trigger that is for a weapon of mass destruction, and our intelligence is clear, I don’t know why we have to do it [attack Iraq] now.”

Then on Aug. 25, in a New York Times op-ed, Bush-41’s Secretary of State James Baker adduces, in a lawyerly but compelling way, virtually all the reasons that what Bush-43, Cheney, Rumsfeld et al. had already decided on regarding Iraq would bring disaster.

Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Nebraska, also says openly in August that Secretary of State Colin Powell and his deputy Richard Armitage had earlier advised President George W. Bush of their concerns about the risks and complexities of a military strike on Iraq.

More trouble for hawks like Cheney was brewing in the House. Republican Majority Leader Dick Armey publicly warned that an “unprovoked attack” on Iraq would be illegal, adding, “It would not be consistent with what we have been as a nation or what we should be as a nation.”

(Armey later told Michael Isikoff, during an on-the-record interview for Isikoff’s book Hubris, that he had warned President George W. Bush that war on Iraq might result in a “quagmire.” He added that, while he found questionable the intelligence presented to him in support of such a war, he would give Bush the benefit of the doubt. According to Barton Gellman, author of Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency, Cheney told Armey that Saddam Hussein’s family had direct ties to Al Qaeda and that Saddam was developing miniature nuclear weapons. Armey then voted for the war, but bitterly complained later that he had been “bullshitted” by Cheney.)

Stopping the Peace Juggernaut


With the President clearing brush and Andrew Card proceeding at what must have seemed to Cheney a dilatory pace, given the mounting opposition to war on Iraq, Cheney seized the bull by the horns, so to speak. Without a word to Secretary of State Powell or CIA Director Tenet, and not wanting to interrupt the President’s vacation, Cheney set the parameters for using “fixed” intelligence to reverse the alarming efforts toward peace.

With the apparent endorsement of Bush junior, when the President got back in town on Sept. 1, the juggernaut was redirected toward war. (One stands in awe of the unchallenged power Cheney was able to exert – even if it was, technically speaking, ad referendum the President.)

Cheney chose to include in an Aug. 26 speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Nashville extreme, unsubstantiated charges about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that set the terms of reference for virtually all that was to follow, including, I regret to say, the National Intelligence Estimate that my former colleagues were suborned into “fixing” around the policy.

In his Aug. 26, 2002 speech, Cheney broadly warned that Saddam Hussein intends to “subject the United States to nuclear blackmail.” He continued:

“Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction [and] is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us. … What he wants is … more time to husband his resources to invest in his ongoing chemical and biological weapons program, and to gain possession of nuclear weapons.…

“Deliverable weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a terror network, or a murderous dictator, or the two working together constitutes as grave a threat as can be imagined. The risks of inaction are far greater than the risk of action. … The Iraqi regime has in fact been very busy enhancing its capabilities in the field of chemical and biological agents, and they continue to pursue the nuclear program they began so many years ago.

“Against that background, a person would be right to question any suggestion that we should just get inspectors back into Iraq, and then our worries will be over. Saddam has perfected the game of shoot and retreat, and is very skilled in the art of denial and deception. A return of inspectors would provide no assurance whatsoever of his compliance with UN resolutions.”

Colin Powell, George Tenet and others had five days, before Bush got back in town, to regain their composure after being blindsided by Cheney – time enough, apparently, to remind themselves about who it was that really had the President’s ear. There is no sign that either Powell or Tenet chose to make a federal case out of it, so to speak. Also choosing to remain silent was former the CENTCOM commander, Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, who was right there at the VFW convention.

Hear No Evil — Speak No Truth


Zinni later said he was shocked to hear Cheney’s depiction of intelligence (Iraq has WMD and is amassing them to use against us) that did not square with what he knew. Although Zinni had retired two years before, his role as consultant had enabled him to stay up to date on key intelligence findings.

“There was no solid proof that Saddam had WMD. … I heard a case being made to go to war,” Zinni told “Meet the Press” 3 ½ years later.

The question lingers: why did Zinni not go public when he first heard Cheney lie? After all, he was one of the very few credible senior officials who might have prevented a war he knew was unnecessary. A tough, widely respected Marine intimidated by a Vice President with five draft deferments? It happens.  It happened.

Secretary of State Powell was also blindsided, but there is no sign he summoned the courage to voice any objections directly to the President about Cheney’s version of the threat from Iraq and what had to be done about it.

CIA Director Tenet has written that he, too, was taken completely by surprise by what Cheney said. In his memoir, Tenet added, “I had the impression that the president wasn’t any more aware than we were of what his number-two was going to say to the VFW until he said it.” But Tenet, as noted above, knew only too well that the intelligence was being “fixed,” because he was in charge of fixing it.

So for Tenet the surprise was simply one of timing – that Cheney would go out on so long a limb before Bush got back from vacation.

From Cheney’s perspective the timing was perfect. With Bush out of town, it was even easier to avoid messy fights with what Cheney considered a troublesome, unnecessary bureaucracy (he had built up his own). And with UK Prime Minister Blair coming to Camp David six days after Bush got back, it would be cumbersome enough to fine-tune and coordinate the appropriate talking points for Bush to use with Blair on Sept. 7.

And so, with the month of August seeing a phalanx of senior Bush foreign policy advisers and other experts, as well as key Congressional leaders, speaking out in a troubling way against the war, an ever decisive Cheney decided he could not abide by the proverbial maxim that Andrew Card actually let drop publicly in early September: ”From a marketing point of view, you don’t introduce new products in August.” Just to be clear, the White House chief of staff was talking about marketing war.

By the time George W. Bush got back to the Oval Office, the White House Iraq Group (WHIG) had gotten its instructions from Cheney on the strategy with which to approach Tony Blair to keep him harnessed onto the commander’s Jeep for war – with particular attention to the joint U.S.-U.K. “marketing” campaign to be launched, big time, the day after the Bush and Blair met at Camp David.

The media did a little warm-up, with the BBC reporting that President Bush had shared with Prime Minister Blair satellite photographs released by a UN agency that allegedly showed clear evidence that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction.  “I don’t know what more evidence we need,” said Mr. Bush. (There were no such photos.)

On Sunday, Sept. 8, came the opening salvo of the marketing campaign – a major propaganda blitz with all hands on deck. The WHIG had been doing its homework and was working with very accommodating media. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Richard Meyers fanned out to the talk shows right after Bush gave Blair the word at Camp David.

The hot topic was new information, apparently made available by the administration to the New York Times a day or two before, concerning “aluminum tubes,” sought by Iraq, supposedly for use in refining uranium for a nuclear weapon.

Rice claimed that the tubes were “really are only suited to — high-quality aluminum tools that are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs.” Rice acknowledged that “there will always be some uncertainty” in determining how close Iraq may be to obtaining a nuclear weapon but warned, “We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.” (It turned out the tubes were actually for artillery known to be in Iraq’s inventory.)

Upon her return to the White House from CNN, she must have been awarded WHIG’s first Oscar. Cheney should have been runner-up for his Meet the Press performance accusing Saddam Hussein of moving aggressively to develop nuclear weapons to add to his stockpile of chemical and biological arms. The Vice President actually let slip the White House strategy, expressing hope that Congress would vote for war before it recessed in October (mid-term elections coming the following month).

With members fearing accusations of “softness” if they resisted President Bush’s authorization to use force, Congress voted for war. The war was on.

Also, on Sunday, Sept. 8, 2002, Rumsfeld on Face the Nation warned that inspections in Iraq would have to be intrusive enough to ensure that Saddam Hussein is disarmed. Powell told Fox News that the Bush administration believes that the best way to disarm Iraq “is with a regime change.” And Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Myers on ABC’s This Week added, “We have the forces, we have the readiness. U.S. armed forces will prevail, if called upon to strike Iraq.”

Six Months Later


A half-year later on Feb. 15, 2003, as the elder Bush watched 30 million demonstrators in 800 cities around the world marching against the war for which Bush-43 was so keen, I suspect there may have been a tinge of regret at having pulled strings to ensure young George would not have to experience war by serving in Vietnam.

Unlike his father, George W. had not the foggiest notion of what war is like, and Bush-41 can be thought to have been painfully aware of that. It may have occurred to him to belatedly apply some tough-love to 43 or to even go public in a last-ditch effort to prevent the coming catastrophe. He probably knew that it was unrealistic to expect that the likes of Scowcroft and Baker could influence 43 to change course.

But George H. W. Bush continued to say and do nothing, waiting until now – more than a dozen years after the catastrophic Iraq War was launched – to voice his objections. An unhappy ending for the patriarch of a would-be dynasty.
« Last Edit: 2015-11-12, 08:54:17 by evolvingape »


---------------------------
Everyman Standing Order 01: In the Face of Tyranny; Everybody Stands, Nobody Runs.
Everyman Standing Order 02: Everyman is Responsible for Energy and Security.
Everyman Standing Order 03: Everyman knows Timing is Critical in any Movement.
   
Pages: 1 ... 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 [52] 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 ... 100
« previous next »


 

Home Help Search Login Register
Theme © PopularFX | Based on PFX Ideas! | Scripts from iScript4u 2024-03-29, 05:30:24