The World We Live In !!

Slate | By William Saletan | 11 January 2010

Traitor, Bomber, Soldier, Spy

Stop crying “terrorism” every time we’re attacked.

Afghan police officers inspect the site of a blast in Khost province Photo: REUTERS

Two weeks ago, a Jordanian suicide bomber blew up seven CIA employees at a U.S. military base in Afghanistan. The CIA called it a “terrorist attack.” So did the Associated Press in a report published in dozens of news outlets. Other journalists, analysts, commentators, and TV news anchors followed suit. In a Washington Post op-ed published yesterday, CIA Director Leon Panetta said of the fallen officers, “When you are fighting terrorists, there will be risks.”

Terrorists? No, sir. The bombing of the CIA base, like the November massacre at Fort Hood, Texas, was an act of war. It was also espionage. But it wasn’t terrorism. Terrorism targets civilians. The CIA officers killed at the Afghan base, like the soldiers shot down at Fort Hood, were not civilians. They were running a war.

According to the U.S. Code (Title 22, Chapter 38, Section 2656f), “the term ‘terrorism’ means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents.” That’s the definition we apply to other countries when we designate them as state sponsors of terrorism.

The Sept. 11 attacks, which used planes full of civilians to hit the World Trade Center, fit this definition. So did the attempt to blow up Northwest Flight 253 on Christmas Day. So did the Taliban’s 2008 bombing of a hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan. Read more…

At a covert forward operating base run by the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, members of an elite division of Blackwater are at the center of a secret program in which they plan targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives, “snatch and grabs” of high-value targets and other sensitive action inside and outside Pakistan, an investigation by The Nation has found. The Blackwater operatives also assist in gathering intelligence and help direct a secret US military drone bombing campaign that runs parallel to the well-documented CIA predator strikes, according to a well-placed source within the US military intelligence apparatus.

The source, who has worked on covert US military programs for years, including in Afghanistan and Pakistan, has direct knowledge of Blackwater’s involvement. He spoke to The Nation on condition of anonymity because the program is classified. The source said that the program is so “compartmentalized” that senior figures within the Obama administration and the US military chain of command may not be aware of its existence.

Story Via The Nation.com.

Read more…

KABUL: The Taliban’s reclusive leader said in a Muslim holiday message Saturday that the U.S. and NATO should study Afghanistan’s long history of war, in a pointed reminder that foreign forces have had limited military success in the country.

The message from Mullah Omar comes less than a month before the eighth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan to oust the Taliban for hosting al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. This year has been the deadliest of the conflict for U.S. and NATO troops, and political support at home for the war is declining.

Taliban attacks have spiked around Afghanistan in the last three years, and the militants now control wide swaths of territory. In his message for the upcoming Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, which ends the fasting month of Ramadan, Omar said the U.S. and NATO should study the history of Alexander the Great, whose forces were defeated by Pashtun tribesmen in the 4th century.

Omar’s message said the international community has “wrongly depicted” the Taliban as a force against education and women’s rights. It did not elaborate. Taliban militants don’t allow females outside the home without a male escort.

Read more…

Twenty Minutes With The President | InfoWars

I recently had the pleasure of sitting down with our 44^th President of the United States of America, Barack Hussein Obama, while he was out promoting his health care reform initiative. I requested 30 minutes given the scope and detail of my inquiry; they said I could have 20. Twenty minutes, 1200 seconds, not a lot of time to question the President about one of the most important events in our nation’s history. The following is a transcript of our remarkable discussion.

————————————————————————————————————————

Charlie Sheen – Good afternoon Mr. President, thank you so much for taking time out of your demanding schedule.

President Barack Obama – My pleasure, the content of your request seemed like something I should carve out a few minutes for.

CS – I should point out that I voted for you, as your promises of hope and change, transparency and accountability, as well as putting government back into the hands of the American people, struck an emotional chord in me that I hadn’t felt in quite some time, perhaps ever.

PBO – And I appreciate that Charlie. Big fan of the show, by the way.

CS – Sir, I can’t imagine when you might find the time to actually watch my show given the measure of what you inherited.

PBO – I have it Tivo’d on Air Force One. Nice break from the traveling press corps. (He glances at his watch) not to be abrupt or to rush you, but you have 19 minutes left.

CS – I’ll take that as an invitation to cut to the chase. Read more…

Then Maj. Gen. Hamid Gul, Director General of the ISI (far left), with William Webster, Director of Central Intelligence, Clair George, Deputy Director for Operations, and Milt Bearden, CIA station chief, at a training camp for the mujahedeen in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province in 1987 (RAWA.org)

In an exclusive interview with Foreign Policy Journal, retired Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul responds to charges that he supports terrorism, discusses 9/11 and ulterior motives for the war on Afghanistan, claims that the U.S., Israel, and India are behind efforts to destabilize Pakistan, and charges the U.S. and its allies with responsibility for the lucrative Afghan drug trade.

Retired Lieutenant General Hamid Gul was the Director General of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) from 1987 to 1989, during which time he worked closely with the CIA to provide support for the mujahedeen fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Though once deemed a close ally of the United States, in more recent years his name has been the subject of considerable controversy. He has been outspoken with the claim that the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 were an “inside job”. He has been called “the most dangerous man in Pakistan”, and the U.S. government has accused him of supporting the Taliban, even recommending him to the United Nations Security Council for inclusion on the list of international terrorists.

In an exclusive interview with Foreign Policy Journal, I asked the former ISI chief what his response was to these allegations. He replied, “Well, it’s laughable I would say, because I’ve worked with the CIA and I know they were never so bad as they are now.” He said this was “a pity for the American people” since the CIA is supposed to act “as the eyes and ears” of the country. As for the charge of him supporting the Taliban, “it is utterly baseless. I have no contact with the Taliban, nor with Osama bin Laden and his colleagues.” He added, “I have no means, I have no way that I could support them, that I could help them.”

Ex-ISI Chief Says Purpose of New Afghan Intelligence Agency RAMA Is ‘to destabilize Pakistan’ | Foreign Policy Journal.

The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency’s director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday.

The report that Mr. Cheney was behind the decision to conceal the still-unidentified program from Congress deepened the mystery surrounding it, suggesting that the Bush administration had put a high priority on the program and its secrecy.

Mr. Panetta, who ended the program when he first learned of its existence from subordinates on June 23, briefed the two intelligence committees about it in separate closed sessions the next day.

Cheney Is Linked to Concealment of C.I.A. Project – NYTimes.com.

We can all remember a moment when we gazed up at the sky and used our imagination to make familiar shapes out of the clouds.  In folk wisdom, seers practice aeromancy, a form of divination that involves observing atmospheric phenomena and nephomancy, the divination by studying clouds).

What we are witnessing in the Iranian situation resembles this practice, only now the clouds are made of information. This infosphere is not the same as the old chestnut, the “fog of war.” It’s more like what I call the fog-machine of war, and its analysts are performing infomancy.

People are seeing their hopes, fears, and their shadows in this data mist. One of these faith-based assertions is that more info equals more democracy. It’s not just that observers consider the anti-regime protests to be democratic, but they believe the use of social media is inherently democratic (i.e. more freedom of expression).  But we were given official notice early in Obama’s administration that cyberwar is a renewed threat, so why not take heed and understand Iran as a case of warfare? In that light, more info = more infowar; more information means more disinformation.  Propaganda used to come in print form and be dropped from the skies.  Now it’s laterally spread through peer-to-peer networks, creating a bottom-up disinfosphere.

What happens then?  Info droplets get absorbed by more traditional news outlets. Cable news now functions as a mechanism that selects from a haze of unverifiable information and amplifies its choices. CNN seems to be the best example.  At least they’re upfront about it: an anchor previewed an upcoming story by saying they’d be bringing us reports “true or not.” Jack Cafferty noted that the information from Iraq was “Alive but Cloudy”. Even their original segment on Green martyr Neda opened with the disclaimer “the facts surrounding her life and death are difficult to confirm.” This didn’t stop them from replaying the garish spectacle so often that it begs comparison with the paltry coverage of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and Afghani victims of US aggression. Read more…