The US has a history of false flag attacks being used as excuses to start wars. The problem is, to be effective, false flag attacks require bombs, blood, death... Now, the Wall Street Journal reports in a top headline article, that the US is working on developing a policy that defines cyber attacks-- hacks, computer sabotage-- which cause damage or death, including damage to our economy, as acts of war.





May 31, 2011 at 10:37:43

Get Ready for Digital False Flag Attacks

By Rob Kall (about the author)

The US has a history of false flag attacks being used as excuses to start wars. The problem is, to be effective, false flag attacks require bombs, blood, death...

Now, the Wall Street Journal reports in a top headline, front page article, Cyber Combat: Act of War, that the US is working on developing a policy that defines cyber attacks-- hacks, computer sabotage-- which cause damage or death, including damage to our economy, as acts of war.

One idea gaining momentum at the Pentagon is the notion of "equivalence." If a cyber attack produces the death, damage, destruction or high-level disruption that a traditional military attack would cause, then it would be a candidate for a "use of force" consideration, which could merit retaliation.

The article reports that the military will consider such acts to be cause to retaliate with military, hard weapon attacks.

In part, the Pentagon intends its plan as a warning to potential adversaries of the consequences of attacking the U.S. in this way. "If you shut down our power grid, maybe we will put a missile down one of your smokestacks," said a military official.

With a recent history of attacks on Lockheed Martin, attacks on the banking system in Estonia, the use of the Stuxnet worm to destroy nuclear centrifuges in Iran, the idea of a cyber attack or hacking as an act of war is being codified. The US military is working with allies to define some of the parameters.

But this policy will open up other possibilities as well, and make it much easier for the same kinds of people who use false flag attacks to start previous wars and conflicts.

I asked David Swanson, author of War Is A Lie, his take on this development. He replied:

Treating computer sabotage as war is another leap beyond treating the crimes of a terrorist group as war. It opens the door to wars the Pentagon wanted anyway. The Pentagon will not be going into wars it opposes and wants to avoid, even if there is a "cyber-attack" to respond to. The Pentagon will, however, jump at any justification for a war it already wanted. And this, of course, makes more likely the provocation of computer sabotage, the faking of computer sabotage, and/or the accidental misinterpretation of computer sabotage. Given how many accidents have nearly taken us into nuclear war over the decades, do we really want this door opened?

But here's the catch: it doesn't matter what we want. The Pentagon openly tells the President how many troops to escalate or withdraw. The CIA openly tells the President what war crimes must not be prosecuted. We have special forces in many countries and a war in Libya, completely outside any rule of law. The Defense Authorization Act of 2012 that passed the House on Thursday and now goes to the Senate unconstitutionally gives the President the "legal" power to make war almost anywhere anytime. A President/Pentagon with that power will feel itself entitled to launch wars on the flimsiest of justifications. Assertions that a "cyber war" has been started by someone else whose nation must now be bombed or occupied will be no more verifiable by the American public or the Congress than the official outputs of electronic voting machines. Nothing good can come of this.

Let's be clear that the military is talking about defining cyber aggression that causes financial damage a comparable to something like a naval blockade that causes financial damage. The theory is that both would be seen as acts of war that would warrant violent military attacks, with firepower.

I also asked former CIA analyst Ray McGovern for his take on this development. Here's his reply:

Smokestacks? At last count, China has 3,456,962 smokestacks; Iran only 1,298,135. And there are countless other possible enemies with equally countless smokestacks. This means, of course, the U.S. war industry will have to get busy producing at least as many missiles, drones, etc. to do the job. It will be expensive, but other priorities will have to wait. This will make us all much more secure. Right.

And how will we know about who attacked us and which country must be held responsible. No problem. UIF Gen. Keith Alexander, who leads not only the National Security Agency but also the new Pentagon agency on cyber warfare, can be counted on not only to serve up pure, unadulterated intelligence, but to carry out cyber countermeasures. UIF? It stands for "un-indicted felon." It is a felony to lie to Congress -- the more so in violation of a formal oath to uphold the Constitution in discharge of one's official duties. And that is precisely what Gen. Alexander did. It is no secret.

Alexander lied to House Intelligence Committee member Rush Holt (D-NJ) in December 2005 when Holt asked him directly whether NSA was taking part in warrantless eavesdropping on American citizens. Unfortunately for Alexander, the New York Times published the true story just days later. At the time Congresman Holt reportedly declared that he would see to it that Alexander would never be promoted.

So who's afraid of Congress? Far from being reprimanded, Alexander got his fourth star AND a new, highly sensitive agency to head. So relax, fellow Americans, we are all safe in his hands.

Will this new policy lead to new conspiracy theories? Undoubtedly. The problem is, the worst damage will be done by the "conspiracy theories" that the military and the White House define as real Digital attacks.

Yes. It is absolutely necessary to develop policies for dealing with and more important, preventing cyber attacks of all kinds. But it is difficult to imagine ANY circumstance where a cyber-attack would justify an armed weapons attack. There is such a huge risk that the wrong perpetrator will be accused, for one thing, and we have seen again and again that revenge does not help.

Rob Kall is executive editor, publisher and site architect of OpEdNews.com, Host of the Rob Kall Bottom Up Radio Show (WNJC 1360 AM), President of Futurehealth, Inc, more...)

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author
and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.

9/11 AND AMERICA'S "WAR ON TERRORISM"

9/11 AND AMERICA'S "WAR ON TERRORISM"

PREFACE. Read the critical research on 9/11 in this important book

by Prof Michel Chossudovsky




Global Research, May 26, 2011

The livelihood of millions of people throughout the World is at stake. It is my sincere hope that the truth will prevail and that the understanding provided in this detailed study will serve the cause of World peace. This objective, however, can only be reached by revealing the falsehoods behind America’s “War on Terrorism” and questioning the legitimacy of the main political and military actors responsible for extensive war crimes.


PREFACE

At eleven o’clock, on the morning of September 11, the Bush adminstration had already announced that Al Qaeda was responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Center (WTC) and the Pentagon. This assertion was made prior to the conduct of an indepth police investigation.

That same evening at 9:30 pm, a “War Cabinet” was formed integrated by a select number of top intelligence and military advisors. And at 11:00 pm, at the end of that historic meeting at the White House, the “War on Terrorism” was officially launched.

The decision was announced to wage war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in retribution for the 9/11 attacks. The following morning on September 12th, the news headlines indelibly pointed to “state sponsorship” of the 9/11 attacks. In chorus, the US media was calling for a military intervention against Afghanistan. Barely four weeks later, on the 7th of October, Afghanistan was bombed and invaded by US troops.Americans were led to believe that the decison to go to war had been taken on the spur of the moment, on the evening of September 11, in response to the attacks and their tragic consequences.

Little did the public realize that a large scale theater war is never planned and executed in a matter of weeks. The decision to launch a war and send troops to Afghanistan had been taken well in advance of 9/11. The “terrorist, massive, casualty-producing event” as it was later described by CentCom Commander General Tommy Franks, served to galvanize public opinion in support of a war agenda which was already in its final planning stage.

The tragic events of 9/11 provided the required justification to wage a war on “humanitarian grounds”, with the full support of World public opinion and the endorsement of the “international community”.

Several prominent “progressive” intellectuals made a case for “retaliation against terrorism”, on moral and ethical grounds. The “just cause” military doctrine (jus ad bellum) was accepted and upheld at face value as a legitimate response to 9/11,without examining the fact that Washington had not only supported the “Islamic terror network”, it was also instrumental in the installation of the Taliban government in 1996.

In the wake of 9/11, the antiwar movement was completely isolated. The trade unions and civil society organizations had swallowed the media lies and government propaganda. They had accepted a war of retribution against Afghanistan, an impoverished country of 30 million people.

I started writing on the evening of September 11, late into the night, going through piles of research notes, which I had previously collected on the history of Al Qaeda. My first text entitled “Who is Osama bin Laden?”, which was completed and first published on September the 12th. (See Chapter II.)

From the very outset, I questioned the official story, which described nineteen Al Qaeda sponsored hijackers involved in a highly sophisticated and organized operation. My first objective was to reveal the true nature of this illusive “enemy of America”, who was “threatening the Homeland”.

The myth of the “outside enemy” and the threat of “Islamic terrorists” was the cornerstone of the Bush adminstration’s military doctrine, used as a pretext to invade Afghanistan and Iraq, not to xii America’s “War on Terrorism” mention the repeal of civil liberties and constitutional government in America.

Without an “outside enemy”, there could be no “war on terrorism”. The entire national security agenda would collapse “like a deck of cards”. The war criminals in high office would have no leg to stand on.

It was consequently crucial for the development of a coherent antiwar and civil rights movement, to reveal the nature of Al Qaeda and its evolving relationship to successive US administrations.

Amply documented but rarely mentioned by the mainstream media, Al Qaeda was a creation of the CIA going back to the Soviet- Afghan war. This was a known fact, corroborated by numerous sources including official documents of the US Congress. The intelligence community had time and again acknowledged that they had indeed supported Osama bin Laden, but that in the wake of the Cold War: “he turned against us”.

After 9/11, the campaign of media disinformation served not only to drown the truth but also to kill much of the historical evidence on how this illusive “outside enemy” had been fabricated and transformed into “Enemy Number One”.

The Balkans Connection

My research on the Balkans conducted since the mid-1990s enabled me to document numerous ties and connections between Al Qaeda and the US Administration. The US military, the CIA and NATO had supported Al Qaeda in the Balkans. Washington’s objective was to trigger ethnic conflict and destablize the Yugoslav federation, first in Bosnia, then in Kosovo.

In 1997, the Republican Party Committee (RPC) of the US Senate released a detailed report which accused President Clinton of collaborating with the “Islamic Militant Network” in Bosnia and working hand in glove with an organization linked to Osama bin Laden. (See Chapter III.) The report, however,was not widely publicized. Instead, the Republicans chose to discredit Clinton for his liason with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

The Clinton Adminstration had also been providing covert support to the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), a paramilitary group supported by Al Qaeda, which was involved in numerous terrorist attacks. The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, more commonly known as MI6, together with former members of Britain’s 22nd Special Air Services Regiment (SAS) were providing training to the KLA, despite its extensive links to organized crime and the drug trade. Meanwhile, known and documented, several Al Qaeda operatives had integrated the ranks of the KLA. (See Chapter III).

Click here to find out more about AMERICA'S "WAR ON TERRORISM"


In the months leading up to 9/11, I was actively involved in research on the terror attacks in Macedonia, waged by the self-proclaimed National Liberation Army (NLA) of Macedonia, a paramilitary army integrated by KLA commanders. Al Qaeda Mujahideen had integrated the NLA.Meanwhile, senior US military officers from a private mercenary company on contract to the Pentagon were advising the terrorists.

Barely a couple of months prior to 9/11, US military advisers were seen mingling with Al Qaeda operatives within the same paramilitary army. In late June 2001, seventeen US “instructors” were identified among the withdrawing rebels. To avoid the diplomatic humiliation and media embarrassment of senior US military personnel captured together with “Islamic terrorists”by the Macedonian Armed Forces, the US and NATO pressured the Macedonian government to allow the NLA terrorists and their US military advisers to be evacuated.

The evidence, including statements by the Macedonian Prime Minister and press reports out of Macedonia, pointed unequivocally to continued US covert support to the “Islamic brigades” in the former Yugoslavia. This was not happening in the bygone era of the Cold War, but in June 2001, barely a couple of months prior to 9/11. These developments, which I was following on a daily basis, immediately cast doubt in my mind on the official 9/11 narrative which presented Al Qaeda as the mastermind behind the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. (Chapter IV.) xiv America’s “War on Terrorism”

The Mysterious Pakistani General

On the 12th of September, a mysterious Lieutenant General, head of Pakistan’s Military Intelligence (ISI), who according to the US press reports “happened to be in Washington at the time of the attacks”, was called into the office of Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitrage.

The “War on Terrorism” had been officially launched late in the night of September 11, and Dick Armitage was asking General Mahmoud Ahmad to help America “in going after the terrorists”. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf was on the phone with Secretary of State Colin Powell and the following morning, on the 13th of September, a comprehensive agreement, was reached between the two governments.

While the press reports confirmed that Pakistan would support the Bush adminstration in the “war on terror”, what they failed to mention was the fact that Pakistan`s military intelligence (ISI) headed by General Ahmad had a longstanding relationship to the Islamic terror network. Documented by numerous sources, the ISI was known to have supported a number of Islamic organizations including Al Qaeda and the Taliban. (See Chapter IV.)

My first reaction in reading news headlines on the 13th of September was to ask: if the Bush adminstration were really committed to weeding out the terrorists, why would it call upon Pakistan`s ISI, which is known to have supported and financed these terrorist organizations?

Two weeks later, an FBI report, which was briefly mentioned on ABC News, pointed to a “Pakistani connection” in the financing of the alleged 9/11 terrorists. The ABC report referred to a Pakistani “moneyman” and “mastermind” behind the 9/11 hikackers.

Subsequent reports indeed suggested that the head of Pakistan’s military intelligence, General Mahmoud Ahmad, who had met Colin Powell on the 13th of September 2001, had allegedly ordered the transfer of 100,000 dollars to the 9/11 ringleader Mohammed Atta. What these reports suggested was that the head of Pakistan’s military intelligence was not only in close contact with senior officials of the US Government, he was also in liason with the alleged hijackers.

My writings on the Balkans and Pakistani connections, published in early October 2001 were later incorporated into the first edition of this book. In subsequent research, I turned my attention to the broader US strategic and economic agenda in Central Asia and the Middle East.

There is an intricate relationship between War and Globalization. The “War on Terror” has been used as a pretext to conquer new economic frontiers and ultimately establish corporate control over Iraq’s extensive oil reserves.

The Disinformation Campaign

In the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the disinformation campaign went into full gear.

Known and documented prior to the invasion, Britain and the US made extensive use of fake intelligence to justify the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Al Qaeda was presented as an ally of the Baghad regime. “Osama bin Laden” and “Weapons of Mass Destruction” statements circulated profusely in the news chain. (Chapter XI.)

Meanwhile, a new terrorist mastermind had emerged: Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi. In Colin Powell’s historic address to the United Nations Security Council, detailed “documentation” on a sinister relationship between Saddam Hussein and Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi was presented, focussing on his ability to produce deadly chemical, biological and radiological weapons, with the full support and endorsement of the secular Baathist regime.

A Code Orange terror alert followed within two days of Powell’s speech at the United Nations Security Council, where he had been politely rebuffed by UN Weapons Inspector Dr. Hans Blix.

Realty was thus turned upside down. The US was no longer viewed as preparing to wage war on Iraq. Iraq was preparing to attack America with the support of “Islamic terrorists”. Terrorist mastermind Al-Zarqawi was identified as the number one suspect. Official statements pointed to the dangers of a dirty radioactive bomb attack in the US.

The main thrust of the disinformation campaign continued in the wake of the March 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq. It consisted in presenting the Iraqi resistance movement as “terrorists”. The image of “terrorists opposed to democracy” fighting US “peacekeepers” appeared on television screens and news tabloids across the globe.

Meanwhile, the Code Orange terror alerts were being used by the Bush administration to create an atmosphere of fear and intimidation across America. (See Chapter XX.) The terror alerts also served to distract public opinion from the countless atrocities committed by US forces in the Afghan and Iraqi war theaters, not to mention the routine torture of so-called “enemy combatants”.

Following the invasion of Afghanistan, the torture of prisoners of war and the setting up of concentration camps became an integral part of the Bush adminstration’s post 9/11 agenda.

The entire legal framework had been turned upside down. According to the US Department of Justice, torture was now permitted under certain circumstances. Torture directed against “terrorists” was upheld as a justifiable means to preserving human rights and democracy. (See chapters XIV and XV.) In an utterly twisted logic, the Commander in Chief can now quite legitimately authorize the use of torture, because the victims of torture in this case are so-called “terrorists”, who are said to routinely apply the same methods against Americans.

The orders to torture prisoners of war at the Guantanamo concentration camp and in Iraq in the wake of the 2003 invasion emanated from the highest levels of the US Government. Prison guards, interrogators in the US military and the CIA were responding to precise guidelines.

An inquisitorial system had been installed. In the US and Britain the “war on the terrorism” is upheld as being in the public interest. Anybody who questions its practices—which now include arbitrary arrest and detention, torture of men, women and children, political assassinations and concentration camps—is liable to be arrested under the antiterrorist legislation.

The London 7/7 Bomb Attack

A new threshold in the “war on terrorism”was reached in July 2005, with the bomb attacks on London’s underground, which resulted tragically in 56 deaths and several hundred wounded.

On both sides of the Atlantic, the London 7//7 attacks were used to usher in far-reaching police state measures. The US House of Representatives renewed the USA PATRIOT Act “to make permanent the government’s unprecedented powers to investigate suspected terrorists”. Republicans claimed that the London attacks showed “how urgent and important it was to renew the law.”

Barely a week prior to the London attacks, Washington had announced the formation of a “domestic spy service” under the auspices of the FBI. The new department—meaning essentially a Big Brother “Secret State Police”—was given a mandate to “spy on people in America suspected of terrorism or having critical intelligence information, even if they are not suspected of committing a crime.” Significantly, this new FBI service is not accountable to the Department of Justice. It is controlled by the Directorate of National Intelligence headed by John Negroponte, who has the authority of ordering the arrest of “terror suspects”.

Meanwhile, in the wake of the 7/7 London attacks, Britain’s Home Office, was calling for a system of ID cards, as an “answer to terrorism”. Each and every British citizen and resident will be obliged to register personal information, which will go into a giant national database, along with their personal biometrics: “iris pattern of the eye”, fingerprints and “digitally recognizable facial features”. Similar procedures were being carried out in the European Union.

War Criminals in High Office

The anti-terrorist legislation and the establishment of a Police State largely serve the interests of those who have committed extensive war crimes and who would otherwise have been indicted under national and international law.

In the wake of the London 7/7 attacks, war criminals continue to legitimately occupy positions of authority,which enable them to xviii America’s “War on Terrorism” redefine the contours of the judicial system and the process of law enforcement. This process has provided them with a mandate to decide “who are the criminals”, when in fact they are the criminals. (Chapter XVI).

From New York and Washington on September 11 to Madrid in March 2004 and to London in July 2005, the terror attacks have been used as a pretext to suspend the writ of habeas corpus. People can be arbitrarily arrested under the antiterrorist legislation and detained for an indefinite period.More generally, throughout the Western World, citizens are being tagged and labeled, their emails, telephone conversations and faxes are monitored and archived. Thousands of closed circuit TV cameras, deployed in urban areas, are overseeing their movements. Detailed personal data is entered into giant Big Brother data banks. Once this cataloging has been completed, people will be locked into watertight compartments.

The witch-hunt is not only directed against presumed “terrorists” through ethnic profiling, the various human rights, affirmative action and antiwar cohorts are also the object of the antiterrorist legislation.

The National Security Doctrine

In 2005, the Pentagon released a major document entitled The National Defense Strategy of the United States of America (NDS), which broadly sketches Washington’s agenda for global military domination. While the NDS follows in the footsteps of the Administration’s “preemptive” war doctrine as outlined in the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), it goes much further in setting the contours of Washington’s global military agenda. (See Chapter XIX.)

Whereas the preemptive war doctrine envisages military action as a means of “self defense” against countries categorized as “hostile” to the US, the 2005 NDS goes one step further. It envisages the possibility of military intervention against “unstable countries” or “failed nations”, which do not visibly constitute a threat to the security of the US.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon had unleashed a major propaganda and public relations campaign with a view to upholding the use of nuclear weapons for the “Defense of the American Homeland” against terrorists and rogue enemies. The fact that the nuclear bomb is categorized by the Pentagon as “safe for civilians” to be used in major counter-terrorist activities borders on the absurd.

In 2005, US Strategic Command (STRATCOM) drew up “a contingency plan to be used in response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack”. The plan includes air raids on Iran using both conventional as well as tactical nuclear weapons.

America’s “War on Terrorism”

The first ten chapters,with some changes and updates, correspond to the first edition of the book published in 2002 under the title War and Globalization: The Truth behind September 11. The present expanded edition contains twelve new chapters, which are the result of research undertaken both prior as well as in the wake of the invasion of Iraq. (Parts III and IV.) The sequencing of the material in Parts III and IV corresponds to the historical evolution of the post 9/11 US military and national security agendas. My main objective has been to refute the official narrative and reveal—using detailed evidence and documentation—the true nature of America’s “war on terrorism”.

Part I includes four chapters on September 11, focusing on the history of Al Qaeda and its ties to the US intelligence apparatus. These chapters document how successive administrations have supported and sustained terrorist organizations with a view to destabilizing national societies and creating political instability.

Part II entitled War and Globalization centers on the strategic and economic interests underlying the “war on terrorism”.

Part III contains a detailed analysis of War Propaganda and the Disinformation Campaign, both prior and in the wake of the invasion of Iraq.

Part IV entitled The New World Order includes a review of the Bush administration’s preemptive war doctrine (Chapter XIX), a detailed analysis of the post-Taliban narcotics trade protected by US intelligence, and a review of the 9/11 Commission Report focusing specifically on “What Happened on the Planes on the Morning of 9/11”.

Chapter XX focuses on the system of terror alerts and their implications. Chapter XXI follows with an examination of the emergency procedures that could be used to usher in Martial Law leading to the suspension of Constitutional government. In this regard, the US Congress has already adopted procedures, which allow the Military to intervene directly in civilian police and judicial functions. In the case of a national emergency—e.g., in response to an alleged terror attack—there are clearly defined provisions, which could lead to the formation of a military government in America.

Finally, Chapter XXII focuses on the broad implications of the 7/7 London Bombs Attacks, which were followed by the adoption of sweeping Police State measures in Britain, the European Union and North America.

Writing this book has not been an easy undertaking. The material is highly sensitive. The results of this analysis, which digs beneath the gilded surface of US foreign policy, are both troublesome and disturbing. The conclusions are difficult to accept because they point to the criminalization of the upper echelons of the State. They also confirm the complicity of the corporate media in upholding the legitimacy of the Administration’s war agenda and camouflaging US sponsored war crimes.

The World is at an important historical crossroads. The US has embarked on a military adventure which threatens the future of humanity. As we go to press, the Bush Administration has hinted in no uncertain terms that Iran is the next target of the “war on terrorism”.

Military action against Iran would directly involve Israel’s participation, which in turn is likely to trigger a broader war throughout the Middle East, not to mention an implosion in the Palestinian occupied territories.

I have attempted to the best of my abilities to provide evidence and detailed documentation of an extremely complex political process.

The livelihood of millions of people throughout the World is at stake. It is my sincere hope that the truth will prevail and that the understanding provided in this detailed study will serve the cause of World peace. This objective, however, can only be reached by revealing the falsehoods behind America’s “War on Terrorism” and questioning the legitimacy of the main political and military actors responsible for extensive war crimes.

I am indebted to many people, who in the course of my work have supported my endeavors and have provided useful research insights. The readers of the Global Research website at www.globalresearch.ca have been a source of continuous inspiration and encouragement.

The Psychopathic Criminal Enterprise Called America

The Psychopathic Criminal Enterprise Called America

The Government uses the Law to Harm People and Shield the Establishment

by Prof. John Kozy
Most Americans know that politicians make promises they never fulfill; few know that politicians make promises they lack the means to fulfill, as President Obama's political posturing on the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico makes perfectly clear.

Obama has made the following statements:

He told his "independent commission" investigating the Gulf oil spill to "thoroughly examine the disaster and its causes to ensure that the nation never faces such a catastrophe again." Aside from the fact that presidential commissions have a history of providing dubious reports and ineffective recommendations, does anyone really believe that a way can be found to prevent industrial accidents from happening ever again? Even if the commissions findings and recommendations succeed in reducing the likelihood of such accidents, doesn't this disaster prove that it only takes one? And unlikely events happen every day.

The president has said, "if laws are insufficient, they'll be changed." But no president has this ability, only Congress has, and the president must surely know how difficult getting the Congress to effectively change anything is. He also said that "if government oversight wasn't tough enough, that will change, too." Will it? Even if he replaces every person in an oversight position, he can't guarantee it. The people who receive regulatory positions always have ties to the industries they oversee and can look forward to lucrative jobs in those industries when they leave governmental service. As long as corporate money is allowed to influence governmental action, neither the Congress nor regulators can be expected to change the laws or regulatory practices in ways that make them effective, and there is nothing any president can do about it. Even the Congress' attempt to raise the corporate liability limit for oil spills from $75 million to $10 billion has already hit a snag.

The President has said that "if laws were broken, those responsible will be brought to justice" and that BP would be held accountable for the "horrific disaster." He said BP will be paying the bill, and BP has said it takes responsibility for the clean-up and will pay compensation for "legitimate and objectively verifiable" claims for property damage, personal injury, and commercial losses. But "justice" is rendered in American courts, not by the executive branch. Any attempts to hold BP responsible will be adjudicated in the courts at the same snail's pace that the responsibility for the Exxon-Mobile Alaska oil spill was adjudicated and likely will have the same results.

The Exxon Valdez oil spill occurred in Prince William Sound on March 24, 1989. In Baker v. Exxon, an Anchorage jury awarded $287 million for actual damages and $5 billion for punitive damages, but after nineteen years of appellate jurisprudence, the Supreme Court on June 25, 2008 issued a ruling reducing the punitive damages to $507.5 million, roughly a tenth of the original jury's award. Furthermore, even that amount was reduced further by nineteen years of inflation. By that time, many of the people who would have been compensated by these funds had died.

The establishment calls this justice. Do you? Do those of you who reside in the coastal states that will ultimately be affected by the Deepwater Horizon disaster really believe that the President can make good on this promise of holding BP responsible? By the time all the lawsuits filed in response to this disaster wend their ways through the legal system, Mr. Obama will be grayed, wizened, and ensconced in a plush chair in an Obama Presidential Library, completely out of the picture and devoid of all responsibility.

Politicians who engage in this duplicitous posturing know that they can't fulfill their promises. They know they are lying; yet they do it pathologically. Aesop writes, "A liar will not be believed, even when he speaks the truth." Perhaps that's why politicians never do.

Government in America consists of law. Legislators write it, executives apply it, and courts adjudicate it. But the law is a lie. We are told to respect the law and that it protects us. But it doesn't. Think about it people! The law and law enforcement only come into play secundum vitium (after the crime). The police don't show up before you're assaulted, robbed, or murdered; they come after. So how does that protect you? Yes, if a relationship of trust is violated, you can sue if you can afford it, and even that's not a sure thing. (Remember the victims of the Exxon-Valdez disaster!) Even if the person who violated the relationship gets sanctioned, will you be "made whole"? Most likely not! Relying on the law is a fool's errand. It's enacted, enforced, and adjudicated by liars.

The law is a great crime, far greater than the activities it outlaws, and there's no way you can protect yourself from it. The establishment protects itself. The law does not protect people. It is merely an instrument of retribution. It can only be used, often ineffectively, to get back at the malefactor. It never un-dos the crime. Executing the murderer doesn't bring back the dead. Putting Ponzi schemers in jail doesn't get your money back. And holding BP responsible won't restore the Louisiana marshes, won't bring back the dead marine and other wildlife, and won't compensate the victims for their losses. Carefully watch what happens over the next twenty years as the government uses the law to shield BP, Transocean, and Halliburton while the claims of those affected by the spill disappear into the quicksand of the American legal system.

Jim Kouri, citing FBI studies, writes that "some of the character traits exhibited by serial killers or criminals may be observed in many within the political arena.;" they share the traits of psychopaths who are not sensitive to altruistic appeals, such as sympathy for their victims or remorse or guilt over their crimes. They possess the personality traits of lying, narcissism, selfishness, and vanity. These are the people to whom we have entrusted our fate. Is it any wonder that America is failing at home and world-wide?

Some may say that this is an extreme, audacious claim. I, too, was surprised when I read Kouri's piece. But anecdotal evidence to support it is easily cited. John McCain said "bomb, bomb, bomb" during the last presidential campaign in response to a question about Iran. No one in government has expressed the slightest qualms about the killing of tens of thousands of people in both Iraq and Afghanistan who had absolutely nothing to do with what happened on nine/eleven or the deliberate targeting of women and children by unmanned drones in Pakistan. What if anything distinguishes serial killers from these governmental officials? Only that they don't do the killing themselves but have others do it for them. But that's exactly what most of the godfathers of the cosa nostra did.

So, there are questions that need to be posed: Has the government of the United States of America become a criminal enterprise? Is the nation ruled by psychopaths? Well, how can the impoverishment of the people, the promotion of the military-industrial complex and endless wars and their genocidal killing, the degradation of the environment, the neglect of the collapsing infrastructure, and the support of corrupt and authoritarian governments (often called democracies) abroad be explained? Worse, why are corporations allowed to profiteer during wars while the people are called upon to sacrifice? Why hasn't the government ever tried to prohibit such profiteering? It's not that it can't be done.

In the vernacular, harming people is considered a crime. It is just as much a crime when done by governments, legal systems, or corporations. The government uses the law to harm people or shield the establishment from the consequences of harming people all the time. Watch as no one from the Massey Energy Co. is ever prosecuted for the disaster at the Upper Big Branch coal mine. When corporations are accused of wrongdoing, they often reply that what they did was legal, but legal is not a synonym for right. When criminals gain control, they legalize criminality.

Unless the government of the United States changes its behavior, this nation is doomed. No one in government seems to realize that dissimulation breeds distrust, distrust breeds suspicion, and suspicion eventually arouses censure. Isn't that failure of recognition by the establishment a sign of criminal psychopathology?

John Kozy is a retired professor of philosophy and logic who blogs on social, political, and economic issues. After serving in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, he spent 20 years as a university professor and another 20 years working as a writer. He has published a textbook in formal logic commercially, in academic journals and a small number of commercial magazines, and has written a number of guest editorials for newspapers. His on-line pieces can be found on http://www.jkozy.com/ and he can be emailed from that site's homepage.

John Kozy is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by John Kozy

House Passes Bill Authorizing Worldwide War

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 26, 2011 3:08 PM

CONTACT: ACLU Mandy Simon, (202) 675-2312; media@dcaclu.org

House Passes Bill Authorizing Worldwide War As Momentum Builds Against It

Defense Bill Also Contains Several Other Troubling Provisions

WASHINGTON - May 26 - The House today passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which contains a dangerous provision that authorizes a worldwide war against terrorism suspects and against nations suspected of supporting them. The bill includes several additional troubling provisions, including one that would needlessly delay the implementation of the repeal of the discriminatory “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy and another blocking all federal criminal trials of suspected terrorists who are not U.S. citizens. The American Civil Liberties Union strongly opposes the authorization for worldwide war and many other provisions in the bill.

Earlier this week, President Obama threatened to veto the legislation, citing concerns with the worldwide war provision and provisions limiting the executive branch’s authority to transfer terrorism suspects to the United States for prosecution or for release to other countries. An amendment to strike the worldwide war provision failed despite a strong bipartisan vote.

“The tide has begun to turn against the worldwide war proposal,” said Laura W. Murphy, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. “Two weeks ago, very few people even knew this dangerous worldwide war provision was being considered. Yet today, a bipartisan group of 187 members voted to try to block its passage and the president has issued a veto threat against it. The Senate should now build on today’s momentum and kill off this dangerous unlimited war proposal. A new authorization of worldwide war will mean unrestricted powers to use the military at home and abroad at a time when the majority of Americans want limits on U.S. involvement in foreign conflicts. Not only will this authority make America less safe, it is unnecessary and will undermine our values and change us as a nation.”

The worldwide war provision was added to the bill by the committee's chairman, Rep. Buck McKeon (R-Calif.), and goes much further than the current authorization of war. The new authorization would last as long as there are terrorism suspects anywhere in the world and would allow a president to use military force in any country around the world where there are terrorism suspects, even when there is no connection to the 9/11 attacks or any other specific harm or threat to the United States.

The NDAA’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” provisions would delay repeal implementation by expanding the repeal law’s certification requirements to include each service chief for each branch of the armed forces and deny lesbian and gay service members equal access to federal facilities on the basis of their sexual orientation.

“Trying to throw a roadblock up to derail ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ repeal at this point is a desperate attempt to postpone the inevitable,” said Murphy. “For nearly 20 years, lesbian, gay and bisexual service members have been forced to hide who they are and who they love in order to serve their country. It was with the will of the president, the uniformed and civilian leadership of the military and Congress itself that ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ was repealed and its implementation will continue to move forward successfully despite the attempts by some House members to disrupt it.”

An important reproductive rights amendment, however, was not even considered for debate. The amendment, offered by Rep. Susan Davis (D-Calif.) and five other co-sponsors, would have ended the current unconscionable ban on insurance coverage of abortion care for servicewomen and dependents in cases of rape and incest.

“It is indefensible that the House would decide against voting on an amendment to benefit our women in uniform who become pregnant as a result of rape. Women who join the military face shocking levels of sexual assault and this current ban on abortion coverage is both unfair and disgraceful,” said Murphy.

An amendment to create a new, costly school voucher program was defeated. The ACLU opposes school vouchers because they allow taxpayer dollars to go to religious schools and undermine the separation of church and state. The defeated amendment would have forced students who used the vouchers to forfeit many of the protections guaranteed to them in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

###

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) conserves America's original civic values working in courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in the United States by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Sen. Wyden Decries “Secret Law” on PATRIOT Act

Secrecy News

Secrecy News from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy

Sen. Wyden Decries “Secret Law” on PATRIOT Act

May 25th, 2011 by Steven Aftergood

An amendment offered on May 24 by Sen. Ron Wyden would have challenged the Administration’s reliance on what he called “secret law” and required the Attorney General to explain the legal basis for its intelligence collection activities under the USA PATRIOT Act. But that and other proposed amendments to the PATRIOT Act have been blocked in the Senate.

“The public will be surprised… when they learn about some of the interpretations of the PATRIOT Act,” Sen. Wyden said, based on his access to classified correspondence between the Justice Department and the Senate Intelligence Committee.

“U.S. Government officials should not secretly reinterpret public laws and statutes in a manner that is inconsistent with the public’s understanding of these laws or describe the execution of these laws in a way that misinforms or misleads the public.”

“We can have honest and legitimate disagreements about exactly how broad intelligence collection authorities ought to be, and members of the public do not expect to know all of the details about how those authorities are used,” Sen. Wyden said. “But I hope each Senator would agree that the law itself should not be kept secret and that the government should always be open and honest with the American people about what the law means.”

But the Senate moved toward cloture on reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act provisions and the Wyden amendment, which was co-sponsored by several Senate colleagues, was not permitted to be offered or to be voted upon.

The House Judiciary Committee issued a report last week on the reauthorization of surveillance provisions in the USA PATRIOT Act, with a lengthy dissent from the minority members of the Committee. See “FISA Sunsets Reauthorization Act of 2011,” House Report 112-79, part 1, May 18, 2011.

In 2008, then-Sen. Russ Feingold chaired a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on “Secret Law and the Threat to Democratic and Accountable Government.”

Defense Employees Told to Report Suspicious Activities - Or Else...

Secrecy News

Secrecy News from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy

Defense Employees Told to Report Suspicious Activities

May 24th, 2011 by Steven Aftergood

A new counterintelligence directive (pdf) requires all Department of Defense personnel to report a wide range of suspicious activities and behavior to counterintelligence officials. The directive effectively deputizes millions of military and civilian employees of the Department as counterintelligence agents or informants. If they do not report any of the specified activities, they themselves could be subject to punitive action.

“Potential FIE [Foreign Intelligence Entity] threats to the DoD, its personnel, information, materiel, facilities, and activities, or to U.S. national security shall be reported by DoD personnel,” the new directive states.

“DoD personnel who fail to report information as required… may be subject to judicial or administrative action, or both, pursuant to applicable law and regulation,” it says. See DoD Directive 5240.06, “Counterintelligence Awareness and Reporting,” May 17, 2011.

The directive lists numerous actions that are subject to mandatory reporting including “attempts to obtain classified or sensitive information by an individual not authorized to receive such information” and “requests for DoD information that make an individual suspicious, to include suspicious or questionable requests over the internet or SNS [social networking services].”

The directive employs the relatively new term “Foreign Intelligence Entity,” which includes non-governmental organizations based abroad that use intelligence techniques to gather US government information or to influence US policy. The new phrase did not appear in the official Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms as recently as a year ago (pdf), though it is included in the latest edition of the Dictionary (pdf).

A Foreign Intelligence Entity is defined in the directive as “any known or suspected foreign organization, person, or group (public, private, or governmental) that conducts intelligence activities to acquire U.S. information, block or impair U.S. intelligence collection, influence U.S. policy, or disrupt U.S. systems and programs. The term includes foreign intelligence and security services and international terrorists.”

Revolt from US War Criminals: letter from a real Nobel Peace Prize Laureate to Obama

Revolt from US War Criminals: letter from a real Nobel Peace Prize Laureate to Obama

Written by Carl_Herman

FROM NOBEL TO NOBEL

Dear Barack,

In addressing you I do it fraternally and, at the same time, to express my concern and indignation after witnessing the destruction and death caused in several nations in the name of “freedom and democracy”, two words that have been twisted and stripped of meaning, and how you end up justifying murder, which was cheered up as if you were talking about a sports event.

My indignation refers to the big celebration of this assassination by North American social sectors, chiefs of state in Europe and other countries…a murder ordered by your administration and the satisfaction in your smiling face while stating that it was “in the name of justice”.

You didn’t intend to seize and judge him for his alleged crimes, which makes us believe that your real intent was to assassinate him.

The dead are mute and fearing that Bin Laden could disclose compromising facts for the USA, you decided to kill him, ensuring his permanent silence, unaware that by doing this you have reinforced our suspicions.

When you were granted the Nobel Prize I sent you a letter which read: “Barack, I am astounded by your having been presented with the Nobel Prize, but now that you have it you must use to promote peace among nations; you have all the possibilities to do it…to end the wars and begin correcting the severe crisis in your own country and the world”.

Unfortunately, you have increased hatred and betrayed the principles you assumed during your electoral campaign, such as ending the invasions in Afghanistan and Iraq; closing the prisons in Guantanamo and Abu Graib, but you haven’t done it, quite to the contrary, you decided to start another war in Libya, backed up by NATO and the shameful resolution by UNO to support you, when this organization, diminished and weak, has lost its path and has been subjugated to the whims and interests of the dominant powers.

The foundational premise of the UNO is to defend and promote peace and dignity among nations. Its Chart begins saying: “Us, the peoples of the world…” currently ignored by this organization.

I would like to recall a mystic and teacher who has meant a great influence in my life: priest Thomas Merton of the Abbey of Gethsemane in Kentucky, who stated: “The greater necessity of our time is to cleanse the enormous mass of mental garbage in our consciousness, which has turned public life into a mass disease. Without this domestic cleansing we will be unable to start seeing… and if we can’t see, we can’t think”.

You were very young, Barack, during the Vietnam war; maybe you don’t remember the huge opposition of the North American people to such war.

The dead, injured, and maimed in Vietnam are painful consequences…

Thomas Merton also said while analyzing a mail stamp exhibiting the legend: “el ejército norteamericano es clave para la paz” (The U.S. Army, key to peace”). No country possesses the key to anything other than war…power has nothing to do with peace. The more men are destined to the military, more destruction and violations occur.

I have shared with and accompanied Vietnam veterans, in particular Brian Wilson and his mates, all of them victims of that and all wars.

Life is unpredictable and surprising; it possesses the fragrance and beauty God gave us and must protect to ensure a fair and fraternal life for future generations; to reinstate balance in our Mother Earth.

If we don’t react and change the current situation of suicidal pride, dragging the peoples to deep corners where hope is death, it will be very hard to see the light. Mankind deserves a better fate.

You know that hope is like the flower who flourishes in mud and blossoms in all splendor exhibiting its beauty. Leopoldo Marechal, the notorious Argentine writer, used to say that “you get off the maze climbing to the top”.

I believe, Barack, that after erring the way, you find yourself within a maze, unable to find the exit and instead, you submerge deeper and deeper in violence, uncertainty…devoured by the thirst for power; dragged by the huge corporations, and the military, thinking that you possess the might to do whatever you want, and that the world must surrender to the USA, because you have the weaponry and invade countries in total impunity. This is painful reality but there is also the valiant resistance of the people who don’t yield to the greed of the dominant powers.

So huge are the atrocities perpetrated by your country that it could take a long time to discuss them; they are also a challenge to historians who would have to peer deeper to understand the behavior, the politics, the greatness and pettiness which have led North America to dominate the minds of its society preventing them to see other realities.

Bin Laden, alleged author of the attack to the Twin Towers, has been made the Satan who has terrorized the world and the USA propaganda has identified him as the “core of evil” which has served you well to wage the wars so craved by the military industry to merchandise their murderous trinkets.

Did you know that those who have investigated the painful events of September 11 have declared that such attacks were self-inflicted…the crash of a plane against the Pentagon and the evacuation of the Towers the previous day…all of it concocted to justify the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, and now against Libya, based on lies and arrogance…that you are entitled to “save the peoples in the name of “freedom and the defense of democracy”, cynically stating that the deaths of women and children are “collateral damage”. I experienced all this in Iraq, in Iran, when you bombarded their cities and hospitals and a shelter for children victimized and deemed “collateral damage”.

Pronouncing a speech void of values and meaning, you dub assassination as “death” and boast that “finally, Bin Laden is “dead”. By no means, am I defending Bin Laden, as I have always been against terrorism by both, armed gangs and the government which your country exerts in several regions of the world, generating violence to maintain your control world-wide, and I wonder: if there is a “core of evil” how would you call it?

Could all of this be the reason for the fear North Americans live in…afraid of the vengeance from those dubbed as the “core of evil”…the superficiality and hypocrisy used to justify the unjustifiable.

Peace is a practice of life; the harmonic relations among peoples; it is a challenge to mankind’s consciousness; its path is difficult but hopeful; a path where people construct their own history. Peace is not something you give away…is something you build…and this is precisely what you don’t have, lad: courage to assume your historical responsibility towards your country and the world.

You cannot live immersed in a labyrinth of fear and control from those who truly rule the USA, ignoring international treaties, conventions and protocols of governments who sign but don’t comply with any agreement and hypocritically speak in the name of freedom and law.

How dare you speak of peace if you don’t want to honor your commitments, except those to benefit the USA?

How dare you talk about freedom when you keep innocent people in your prisons of Guantanamo, USA, Iraq, Abu Graib, and Afghanistan?

How dare you speak of human rights and dignity when you violate them permanently and fight all those who don’t share your ideology and, instead, must endure your abuse?

How dare you send soldiers to Haiti after a devastating earthquake, instead of sending humanitarian aid to that suffering country?

How dare you speak of freedom when you massacre the peoples in the Middle East and foster wars and torture in endless violence which hurt Palestinians and Israeli?

Barack: try to look at the top of the maze…you may find the star that guides you, even knowing you will never reach it,quoting Eduardo Galeano. Try to be consistent with what you say and do…this is the only way to avoid losing the way.

The Nobel Prize is a tool which must be used to serve the peoples, but never for personal vanity.

I wish you find the strength and hope, and also wish you find the courage to mend your ways to attain wisdom and peace.

Our appreciation to Patricia Barba Avila for this translation. Also, to Camilo Perez Bustillo, Law professor at UNAM and lead Attorney for the ‘International Tribunal of Conscience’ Pueblos en Movimiento

Continue reading on Examiner.com: Revolt from US War Criminals: letter from a real Nobel Peace Prize Laureate – National Nonpartisan | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/nonpartisan-in-national/revolt-from-us-war-criminals-letter-from-a-real-nobel-peace-prize-laureate#ixzz1MMDPtP7C

The Washington Post

CIA spied on bin Laden from safe house

View Photo Gallery —  The long-hunted al-Qaeda leader and chief architect of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States was killed by U.S. forces May 1 in a surgical raid.

By Greg Miller, Thursday, May 5, 7:56 PM

The CIA maintained a safe house in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad for a small team of spies who conducted extensive surveillance over a period of months on the compound where Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. Special Operations forces this week, U.S. officials said.

The secret CIA facility was used as a base of operations for one of the most delicate human intelligence gathering missions in recent CIA history, one that relied on Pakistani informants and other sources to help assemble a “pattern of life” portrait of the occupants and daily activities at the fortified compound where bin Laden was found, the officials said.

The on-the-ground surveillance work was part of an intelligence-gathering push mobilized after the discovery of the suspicious complex last August that involved virtually every category of collection in the U.S. arsenal, ranging from satellite imagery to eavesdropping efforts aimed at recording voices inside the compound.

The effort was so extensive and costly that the CIA went to Congress in December to secure authority to reallocate tens of millions of dollars within assorted agency budgets to fund it, U.S. officials said.

Most of that surveillance capability remained in place until the execution of the raid by U.S. Navy SEALs shortly after 1 a.m. in Pakistan. The agency’s safe house did not play a role in the raid and has since been shut down, in part because of concerns about the safety of CIA assets in the aftermath, but also because the agency’s work was considered finished.

“The CIA’s job was to find and fix,” said a U.S. official, using Special Operations forces terminology for the identification and location of a high-value target. “The intelligence work was as complete as it was going to be, and it was the military’s turn to finish the target.”

The official, like others quoted for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak for the record. The CIA declined to comment.

U.S. officials provided new details on bin Laden’s final moments, saying the al-Qaeda leader was first spotted by U.S. forces in the doorway of his room on the compound’s third floor. Bin Laden then turned and retreated into the room before being shot twice — in the head and in the chest. U.S. commandos later found an AK-47 and a pistol in the room.

“He was retreating,” a move that was regarded as resistance, a U.S. official briefed on the operation said. “You don’t know why he’s retreating, what he’s doing when he goes back in there. Is he getting a weapon? Does he have a [suicide] vest?”

Despite what officials described as an extraordinarily concentrated collection effort leading up to the operation, no U.S. spy agency was ever able to capture a photograph of bin Laden at the compound before the raid, or a recording of the voice of the mysterious male figure whose family occupied the structure’s top two floors.

Indeed, current and former U.S. intelligence officials said that bin Laden employed remarkable discipline in his efforts to evade detection.

Graphic

Explore the remaining leadership in Al Qaeda and see former leaders that have been killed since Sept. 11, 2001.

More on this Story

• FULL COVERAGE: The death of Osama bin Laden
• PHOTOS: Bin Laden killed in CIA operation
• VIDEOS: Bin Laden’s death; remembering victims
• TIMELINE: The life and death of Osama bin Laden

View all Items in this Story

“You’ve got to give him credit for his tradecraft,” said a former senior CIA official who played a leading role in the manhunt. When spotted by surveillance drones a decade earlier, bin Laden “had bodyguards, multiple SUVs and things like that. He abandoned all of that.”

The officials also outlined emerging theories as to why bin Laden apparently selected the Pakistani military garrison city of Abbottabad as the place that afforded him the greatest chance to stay alive.

The discovery of bin Laden in Abbottabad has raised suspicion that he was placed there and being protected by elements of the Pakistani military and intelligence service, but U.S. officials said they have seen no conclusive evidence that was the case.

The city, about two hours north of Islamabad by car, offered a number of advantages for the al-Qaeda leader, officials said. Chief among them is that Abbottabad, deep inside Pakistan’s borders, is a safe distance from the tribal regions that are patrolled by armed U.S. drones.

U.S. officials said they are convinced that bin Laden, who had long immersed himself among the Pashtun tribes along the border with Afghanistan, was driven from that part of the country by the escalating drone campaign.

“Even five years ago things were dropping from the sky” in Pakistan’s tribal region, a U.S. official said. “He probably felt that if he could conceal his presence [in Abbottabad] it would be an unlikely area for the United States to pursue him.”

Strikes by conventional U.S. aircraft would have carried enormous risks, both because Pakistan has invested heavily in air detection and defense systems — to counter any threat posed by India — and because of the perils of an errant strike.

“All it has to be is about 1,000 yards off and it hits the Pakistan Military Academy,” said a CIA veteran of Afghanistan and Pakistan. The city is also home to two regimental compounds, and suburbs occupied by military families.

U.S. officials said there were also disadvantages for bin Laden in residing in Abbottabad, including the fact that the area is relatively welcoming to outsiders, including Pakistanis on vacation, military families being transferred to bases there, and even U.S. soldiers who have at times been sent to Abbottabad to train Pakistani troops.

“Abbottabad is not a place where Islamic extremists went, because it wasn’t a stronghold,” said the former U.S. intelligence official involved in the bin Laden pursuit. “They preferred places like Peshawar, Quetta or Karachi.” When analysts would consider likely locations for the al-Qaeda chief, the official said, “Abbottabad wouldn’t be on that list.”

The CIA took advantage of that atmosphere to send case officers and recruited informants into Abbottabad undetected, and set up a safe house that functioned as its base.

“That is an Achilles heel for bin Laden, because anybody can go” to Abbottabad, the former CIA official said. “It makes it easier for the CIA to operate.”

U.S. officials declined to say how many case officers or informants used the facility, but they stressed that the effort required extraordinary caution because of the fear that bin Laden and those sheltering him might vanish again if spooked.

The CIA began to focus on the compound last summer after years of painstaking effort to penetrate a small network of couriers with ties to the al-Qaeda leader. Once the most important of those couriers led them to the Abbottabad compound, the conspicuous nature of the complex sent up alarms that it might have been built for bin Laden himself.

“The place was three stories high and you could watch it from a variety of angles,” the former official said. Moving into the custom-made compound, the former official said, “was his biggest mistake.”

When a team of two dozen commandos arrived at the site Monday, one of bin Laden’s couriers was the only enemy to open fire, officials said. “They had to blow through some doors and walls,” said the U.S. official briefed on the raid. “One door they opened up only to find a [cement] wall behind it.”

The SEALs encountered no other armed opposition as they ascended to the top floor, where bin Laden was found. “He was in the doorway and then retreated, and that’s where the operators moved in,” the senior U.S. official said.

Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report. Special correspondent Haq Nawaz Khan in Abbottabad contributed to this report.

History Can’t Hide Hypocrisy

by Ron Jacobs / May 5th, 2011

May 4, 2011 marks the thirty-first anniversary of the murders of four students by the National Guard at Kent State University in the United States. These murders by the state’s armed forces, which were followed by the police murders of six black men during an uprising in Augusta, Georgia and two more students (also black) at Jackson State in Mississippi, proved to be a turning point in the prosecution of the US war on the Vietnamese. In short, the desire to continually expand that war was no longer the consensus among those who plan such things in Washington. The war itself would continue for five more years, but Washington’s belief in its ability to win had been broken.

Of the deaths mentioned above, the six in Ohio and Mississippi occurred during protests against the US invasion of Cambodia–a clear expansion of the war in Southeast Asia. The murders in Augusta were related to the ongoing struggle by African-Americans for equal rights in a country that had not only never granted such rights to these members of their nation but had by forcibly removed them from their homelands to become chattel slaves in the New World. That struggle had been going on since the first families arrived in the American South. It had seen its worst violence during the civil war and what was perhaps its second bloodiest episode in the decade preceding the aforementioned Augusta slayings. It seemed like in each of the previous ten years, there had been a bloody outbreak of anger and rage somewhere in the United States that was related to the freedom struggle of black people in the United States. From the bullwhips and police dogs of Bull Connor’s police in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963 to the US Army’s tanks moving down the streets of Washington, DC and a dozen other cities in 1968, the forces of US law and order (read white supremacy) brutally shed the blood of these people who refused to remain in bondage any longer.

The freedom struggles of African-Americans did release them from legalized apartheid. Admission to schools and employment can no longer be legally denied to them because of their skin tone. Neither can housing or other accommodations. These reforms were realized due to the cooperation of certain elements of the freedom movement, well-meaning liberals in government, the media and the general population, and conservative politicians that understood the need to allow blacks into the system in order to maintain their dominance. Some considered this cooperation to be something much more akin to a hijacking of the movement than anything else. As most everyone will acknowledge, a divide between white skinned and darker toned people continues to exist in the United States. The divide derives from a fundamentally unjust economic system that conspires by its history and continued existence to keep most black people poor and a few white people very wealthy, with the rest of the population fighting each other to get ahead. This situation will not, indeed can not, be resolved until a new economy comes into existence. That scenario involves a struggle most of us seem unwilling to undertake.

Anyhow, I mention the freedom struggle of African-Americans in the Sixties here primarily to make a comparison to western governments’ reaction to the uprisings currently taking place across northern Africa and the Middle East. As I see it, the comparison between the two works like this: in almost all of the nations involved, millions of people have been denied their basic rights by a system that is nothing short of dictatorial in its dealings with them. The struggles of these millions are not new but in most cases have recently reached a critical mass and, like the movements of the Sixties, know no borders. The movement in each nation is unique, yet is also universal. Furthermore, most seem to be contrived of a multitude of political, religious and other philosophies.

The most common factor found in each movement is the response of the national government. In every instance that response has been repression. While the brutality and duration of that repression has differed, there is no denying either the repression or its brutality. Nor is there any denying that, with the possible exception of Egypt, the repression has been greater in those nations that Washington has multiple dealings with. Indeed, it can easily be argued that the closer the relationship (once again with the possible exception of Egypt, which can probably be attributed to Washington’s unpreparedness), the greater the repression of the freedom movements. The general fact of the bloody repression is the similarity to the African-American freedom struggle that strikes me as the most evident. At the same time, it is the one which is not discussed, especially by those in the Washington establishment crowing the loudest for more US intervention in some of the nations now experiencing an uprising. In other words, while blacks in the US were fighting, often quite violently, for their freedom in Sixties, the regime in Washington sent its military to quash those uprisings, killing hundreds in the process. Yet, never once did anyone in the circles of power in DC, London, Rome, Paris or any other western capitol suggest that the government in DC should be overthrown and replaced. In contrast, not only are there voices in each of those capitols calling for regime change in the affected region today, there are military forces from those capitols involved in aiding those forces attempting to overthrow those governments. Naturally, the regimes being attacked by western forces are the regimes whose interests differ from those that direct those forces. Meanwhile, with the exception of Egypt and Tunisia, repression by regimes that serve western interests continues virtually without comment. This alone causes one to wonder what the true motivations of the western governments actually are.

The point of this comparison is not to oppose the legitimate desires for freedom by those fighting across the region. Instead, it is to point out that those of us who genuinely support the freedom struggle in northern Africa and the Middle East should be wary of those governments who claim to do the same. After all, if the same scenario were unfolding within the borders of those nations, would the repression be any less? The experience of black freedom struggle in the US some forty years ago makes it quite clear that the answer is no. History can’t hide hypocrisy.

Ron Jacobs is the author of The Way The Wind Blew: A History of the Weather Underground. Jacobs’ essay on Big Bill Broonzy is featured in CounterPunch’s collection on music, art and sex, Serpents in the Garden. His latest novel The Co-Conspirator's Tale, is published by Fomite. His first novel, Short Order Frame Up, is published by Mainstay Press. He can be reached at: rjacobs3625@charter.net. Read other articles by Ron.

This article was posted on Thursday, May 5th, 2011 at 8:00am and is filed under Civil Disobedience, Democracy, Egypt, General, Imperialism, Iraq, Israel/Palestine, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Solidarity, Syria, Yemen.

U.S. Refusal of 2001 Taliban Offer Gave bin Laden a Free Pass

by Gareth Porter / May 4th, 2011

When George W. Bush rejected a Taliban offer to have Osama bin Laden tried by a moderate group of Islamic states in mid- October 2001, he gave up the only opportunity the United States would have to end bin Laden’s terrorist career for the next nine years.

The al Qaeda leader was able to escape into Pakistan a few weeks later, because the Bush administration had no military plan to capture him.

The last Taliban foreign minister, Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, offered at a secret meeting in Islamabad Oct. 15, 2001 to put bin Laden in the custody of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), to be tried for the 9/11 terror attacks on the United States, Muttawakil told IPS in an interview in Kabul last year.

The OIC is a moderate, Saudi-based organisation representing all Islamic countries. A trial of bin Laden by judges from OIC member countries might have dealt a more serious blow to al Qaeda’s Islamic credentials than anything the United States would have done with bin Laden.

Muttawakil also dropped a condition that the United States provide evidence of bin Laden’s guilt in the 9/11 attacks, which had been raised in late September and reiterated by Taliban Ambassador to Pakistan Abdul Salam Zaeef on Oct. 5 – two days before the U.S. bombing of Taliban targets began.

There had been sketchy press reports at the time that the Taliban foreign minister had made a new offer in Islamabad to have bin Laden tried by one or more foreign countries. No Taliban or former Taliban official, however, had provided details of what had actually been proposed until Muttawakil’s revelation.

Muttawakil, who was detained at Bagram airbase for 18 months after the ouster of the Taliban regime and now lives in Kabul with the approval of the Hamid Karzai government, told IPS he had also offered a second alternative – a “special court” to try bin Laden that Afghanistan and two other Islamic governments would establish.

Muttawakil was believed by U.S. officials to have had the trust of Taliban leader Mullah Omar. A December 1998 cable from the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad said he was “considered Omar’s closest adviser on political issues” and that he had become Omar’s “point man” on foreign affairs in 1997.

The new Taliban negotiating offer came almost immediately after the U.S. began bombing Taliban targets on Oct. 7, 2001. The fear of the bombing – and what was likely to follow – evidently spurred the Taliban leadership to be more forthcoming on bin Laden.

But Bush brusquely rejected any talks on the Taliban proposal, declaring, “They must have not heard. There’s no negotiations.”

Bush rejected the Taliban offer despite the fact that U.S. intelligence had picked up reports in the previous months of deep divisions within the Taliban regime over bin Laden. It was because of those reports that Bush had authorised secret meetings by a CIA officer with a high-ranking Taliban official in late September.

Former CIA director George Tenet recalled in his memoirs that the CIA station chief in Pakistan, Robert Grenier, met with Mullah Osmani, the second ranking Taliban official, in Baluchistan province of Pakistan.

But Grenier was only authorised to offer Osmani three options: turning bin Laden over to the United States; letting the Americans find him on their own; or a third option, as Tenet described it, to “administer justice themselves, in a way that clearly took him off the table”.

Osmani rejected those three options, as well as a subsequent proposal by Grenier on Oct. 2 that he oust Mullah Omar from power and publicly announce on the radio that bin Laden would be handed over to the United States immediately.

On Oct. 3, Bush publicly ruled out negotiations with the Taliban. They had to “turn over the al Qaeda organisation living in Afghanistan and must destroy the terrorist camps,” he said, adding “There are no negotiations.”

Milton Bearden, the former CIA station chief in Pakistan during the Mujahideen war against the Soviets, observed to the Washington Post two weeks after Bush had rejected Muttawakil’s new offer that the Taliban needed a face-saving way of resolving the issue consistent with its Islamic values.

“We never heard what they were trying to say,” Bearden said.

The Bush refusal to negotiate with the Taliban was in effect a free pass for bin Laden and his lieutenants, because the Bush administration had no plan of its own for apprehending bin Laden in Afghanistan. It did not even know what level of military effort would have been required for the United States to be able to block bin Laden’s exit routes from Afghanistan into Pakistan.

The absence of any military planning to catch bin Laden was a function of Bush’s national security team, led by Vice-President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld, which had firmly opposed any military operation in Afghanistan that would have had any possibility of catching bin Laden and his lieutenants.

Rumsfeld and the second-ranking official at the Pentagon, Paul Wolfowitz, had dismissed CIA warnings of an al Qaeda terrorist attack against the United States in the summer of 2001, and even after 9/11 had continued to question the CIA’s conclusion that bin Laden and al Qaeda were behind the attacks.

Cheney and Rumsfeld were determined not to allow a focus on bin Laden to interfere with their plan for a U.S. invasion of Iraq to overthrow the Saddam Hussein regime.

Even after Bush decided in favour of an Afghan campaign, CENTCOM commander Tommy Franks, who was responsible for the war in Afghanistan, was not directed to have a plan for bin Laden’s capture or to block his escape to Pakistan.

When the CIA received intelligence on Nov. 12, 2001 that bin Laden had left Kandahar and was headed for a cave complex in the Tora Bora Mountains close to the Pakistani border, Franks had no assets in place to do anything about it. He asked Lt. Gen. Paul T. Mikolashek, commander of Army Central Command (ARCENT), if he could provide a blocking force between al Qaeda and the Pakistani border, according to Col. David W. Lamm, who was then commander of ARCENT Kuwait.

But that was impossible, because ARCENT had neither the troops nor the strategic lift in Kuwait required to put such a force in place.

Franks then had to ask for Pakistani military help in blocking bin Laden’s exit into Pakistan, as Rumsfeld told a National Security Council meeting, according to the meeting transcript in Bob Woodward’s book Bush at War.

But Rumsfeld and other key advisers knew it would a charade, because bin Laden was a long-time ally of the Pakistani intelligence service, the ISI, and the Pakistani military was not about to help capture him.

Franks asked President Pervez Musharraf to deploy troops along the Afghan-Pakistan border near Tora Bora, and Musharraf agreed to redeploy 60,000 troops to the area from the border with India, according to U.S. Ambassador Wendy Chamberlin, who was present at the meeting.

But the Pakistani president said his army would need airlift assistance from the United States to carry out the redeployment. That would have required an entire aviation brigade, including hundreds of helicopters, and hundreds of support troops to deliver that many combat troops to the border region, according to Lamm.

Those were assets the U.S. military did not have in the theatre.

Osama bin Laden had been effectively guaranteed an exit to Pakistan by a Bush policy that had rejected either diplomatic or military means to do anything about him.

In an implicit acknowledgement that the administration had not been seriously concerned with apprehending bin Laden, Bush declared in a Mar. 13, 2002 press conference that bin Laden was “a person who’s now been marginalised”, and added, “You know, I just don’t spend that much time on him…”

Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specialising in U.S. national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam, was published in 2006. Read other articles by Gareth.

This article was posted on Wednesday, May 4th, 2011 at 7:59am and is filed under Afghanistan, CIA, GWB.

Osama bin Laden's Second Death: What Else is Going On?

May 2, 2011 at 11:09:56

Osama bin Laden's Second Death

By paul craig roberts (about the author)

If today were April 1 and not May 2, we could dismiss as an April fool's joke this morning's headline that Osama bin Laden was killed in a firefight in Pakistan and quickly buried at sea. As it is, we must take it as more evidence that the US government has unlimited belief in the gullibility of Americans.

Think about it. What are the chances that a person allegedly suffering from kidney disease and requiring dialysis and, in addition, afflicted with diabetes and low blood pressure, survived in mountain hideaways for a decade? If bin Laden was able to acquire dialysis equipment and medical care that his condition required, would not the shipment of dialysis equipment point to his location? Why did it take ten years to find him?

Consider also the claims, repeated by a triumphalist US media celebrating bin Laden's death, that "bin Laden used his millions to bankroll terrorist training camps in Sudan, the Philippines, and Afghanistan, sending "holy warriors' to foment revolution and fight with fundamentalist Muslim forces across North Africa, in Chechnya, Tajikistan and Bosnia." That's a lot of activity for mere millions to bankroll (perhaps the US should have put him in charge of the Pentagon), but the main question is: how was bin Laden able to move his money about? What banking system was helping him? The US government succeeds in seizing the assets of people and of entire countries, Libya being the most recent. Why not bin Laden's? Was he carrying around with him $100 million dollars in gold coins and sending emissaries to distribute payments to his far-flung operations?

This morning's headline has the odor of a staged event. The smell reeks from the triumphalist news reports loaded with exaggerations, from celebrants waving flags and chanting "USA USA." Could something else be going on?

No doubt President Obama is in desperate need of a victory. He committed the fool's error or restarting the war in Afghanistan, and now after a decade of fighting the US faces stalemate, if not defeat. The wars of the Bush/Obama regimes have bankrupted the US, leaving huge deficits and a declining dollar in their wake. And re-election time is approaching.

The various lies and deceptions, such as "weapons of mass destruction," of the last several administrations had terrible consequences for the US and the world. But not all deceptions are the same. Remember, the entire reason for invading Afghanistan in the first place was to get bin Laden. Now that President Obama has declared bin Laden to have been shot in the head by US special forces operating in an independent country and buried at sea, there is no reason for continuing the war.

Perhaps the precipitous decline in the US dollar in foreign exchange markets has forced some real budget reductions, which can only come from stopping the open-ended wars. Until the decline of the dollar reached the breaking point, Osama bin Laden, who many experts believe to have been dead for years, was a useful bogyman to use to feed the profits of the US military/security complex.

Paul Craig Roberts was an editor of the Wall Street Journal and an Assistant Secretary of the U.S. (more...)

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author
and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.