The World We Live In !!

May 16, 2009
by Matthew Alexander

Former VP Dick Cheney has requested the release of additional memos showing that torture and abuse saved American lives by preventing terrorist attacks. If the Obama Administration decides to release these memos, then I suggest they also release statistics from Iraq showing the number of foreign fighters that were recruited because of our policy of torture and abuse. It was tracked. I know because I saw the slides and because I heard captured foreign fighters state this day in and day out.

The government can also release the statistics that show that 90% of suicide bombers in Iraq were these same foreign fighters. These foreign fighters killed hundreds, if not thousands, of American soldiers.

After these revelations, Americans can judge whether or not a policy of torture and abuse kept us safe. Unfortunately, we’ll never be able to evaluate the damage that was done to past or future interrogations. As I experienced firsthand, detainees were less likely to cooperate when they viewed us as hypocrites. We can’t establish the trust that is required to convince a detainee to cooperate unless we live up to the principles that we preach.

If We’re Going to Reveal More Memos… | Foreign Policy Journal.

We Americans like to think of ourselves as civilized people. Historically, we have supported our government in war under the belief that our government and our soldiers are honorable and that we do not engage in unjust wars. Ugly things like genocide, torture, naked aggression, raping, pillaging, and scorched earth policies are things that others do, not us. Since we are so good and virginal in every sense, we reason that others hate us only because of our goodness and purity. If they knew the truth about us, we think, they would love us.

Yet, if this is so, why is it that we need to hide from the world the activities of our soldiers and intelligence agents over seas? Why cannot we, the “liberators” of Iraq, show the world the lovely photos of our soldiers at work Abu Ghraib? Why must the CIA consider destroying the records of American conduct in the prisons at Guantanamo? We are so pure, clean, honorable, and all, aren’t we? What have we got to worry about?

If They Knew the Truth, They’d Hate Us Even More.

Hamas Leader Khaled Meshal (Mumtaz al-Baloua / New York Times)

The Palestinian group Hamas has announced a cessation in rocket fire into Israel this week as Khaled Meshal, the political leader of Hamas, in exile in Syria, repeated that Hamas is seeking an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel along the pre-1967 border.

In June 1967, Israel invaded and occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip, where Palestinians now seek to establish their own state. The illegal Israeli occupation continues to hamper their aspirations for democracy and statehood, however.

Israel withdrew forces from Gaza in 2005 and dismantled settlements there, only to place the densely populated territory under siege. On December 27 last year, Israel launched a major military operation against Gaza, dubbed “Operation Cast Lead”, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,300 Palestinians, nearly a third of whom were children.

Israel’s operation has drawn heavy criticism from human rights groups, including for indiscriminate attacks against a civilian population, the use of white phosphorus as a weapon, and targeting protected sites such as schools and hospitals.

In June of last year, Israel and Hamas agreed to a cease-fire, but Israel never honored the truce. During the first week of the truce, Israeli forces fired upon civilians in Gaza. Israel also never lifted the siege, another condition of the cease-fire. On November 4, Israel launched an air attack and ground incursion into Gaza, effectively ending the cease-fire as violence escalated in the weeks that followed. Read more…

Should we be worried about the threat from organised terrorism or is it simply a phantom menace being used to stop society from falling apart?

In the past our politicians offered us dreams of a better world. Now they promise to protect us from nightmares.

The most frightening of these is the threat of an international terror network. But just as the dreams were not true, neither are these nightmares.

In a new series, the Power of Nightmares explores how the idea that we are threatened by a hidden and organized terrorist network is an illusion.

It is a myth that has spread unquestioned through politics, the security services and the international media.

BBC NEWS | Programmes | The Power of Nightmares: Baby It’s Cold Outside.

Hours after Al Jazeera first broadcast a video showing US soldiers in Afghanistan being instructed by the military’s top chaplain in the country to “hunt people for Jesus” as they spread Christianity to the overwhelmingly Muslim population, the Pentagon shot back. It charged that Al Jazeera had “grossly misrepresent[ed] the truth.” Col. Greg Julian, told Al Jazeera: “Most of this is taken out of context … this is irresponsible and inappropriate journalism.”

US soldiers in Afghanistan have been filmed with local language Bibles and urged to be “witnesses for Jesus” despite anti-proselytising rules. Al Jazeera’s James Bays reports.

Now, Al Jazeera and the man who filmed the controversial material are striking back. The network has just released unedited and unaltered footage of US soldiers in ‘bible study’ in Afghanistan. Jazeera describes it as “Extended footage shot by Brian Hughes, a US documentary maker and former member of the US military who spent several days in Bagram near Kabul.”

Al Jazeera and the “Hunt for Jesus” in Afghanistan Video.

It’s common knowledge, he reveals, CIA, Mossad behind terror attacks

Former Italian President Francesco Cossiga, who revealed the existence of Operation Gladio, has told Italy’s oldest and most widely read newspaper that the 9-11 terrorist attacks were run by the CIA and Mossad, and that this was common knowledge among global intelligence agencies. In what translates awkwardly into English, Cossiga told the newspaper Corriere della Sera:

“All the [intelligence services] of America and Europe…know well that the disastrous attack has been planned and realized from the Mossad, with the aid of the Zionist world in order to put under accusation the Arabic countries and in order to induce the western powers to take part … in Iraq [and] Afghanistan.”

Cossiga was elected president of the Italian Senate in July 1983 before winning a landslide election to become president of the country in 1985, and he remained until 1992.

Cossiga’s tendency to be outspoken upset the Italian political establishment, and he was forced to resign after revealing the existence of, and his part in setting up, Operation Gladio. This was a rogue intelligence network under NATO auspices that carried out bombings across Europe in the 1960s, 1970s and ’80s. Gladio’s specialty was to carry out what they termed “false flag” operations—terror attacks that were blamed on their domestic and geopolitical opposition. Read more…