U.S. TERRORISTS STRIKE AT SYRIA AND PAKISTAN KILLING MORE INNOCENT CIVILIANS.

US terrorists are increasing their attacks on Pakistani villages and have now extended their range of murderous operations to include terrorist strikes against civilian targets in Syria as well.

As usual, US propaganda has attempted to justify the attacks that have killed children and innocent civilians by saying they were targeting ‘al Qaeda’ both in Pakistan and Syria. In the latest attacks by US terrorists in Syria, eight innocent civilians were reported to have been killed and Syria has said that future incursions into their country by US terrorists will result in retaliation. The US government have not produced any evidence to support their claims that they were after ‘foreign fighters’ entering Iraq from Syria. Clearly the irony of such remarks regarding ‘foreign fighters in Iraq’ has been missed as it seems the only foreign fighters that are in Iraq are the US terrorists themselves.

For some time the US government has been in the habit of referring to fighters that attempt to defend themselves and their respective countries against US terrorism as ‘al Qaeda’ after the organisation of the same name that the American CIA organisation set up in the last century to combat a Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and led by the late Osama bin Laden. The US had also accused bin Laden of being responsible for the attacks against the American people on 9/11, an act of terror that much of the world now know was actually perpetrated with the connivance of extremist elements within the US government itself.

While the latest US terrorist acts have been nowhere near as deadly as the initial attacks US terrorists made on the Afghani and Iraqi people in 2001 and 2003 respectively in which well over a million people died and millions more driven from their homes and country, the latest attacks indicate that they are still willing to kill innocent people in order to perpetuate the myth in the West that those that fight to defend their lands against US terrorism are some kind of evil enemy that must be eliminated in order to maintain the equally mythical perception of ‘American exceptionalism’.

The word ‘terrorist’ is bandied about in the West without any thought or consideration to the real meaning of the word. It is hoped that my use of the word in the context that I have used above will provide a new and different perspective about who the real ‘terrorists’ are in the world.

WORST CASE SCENARIO FOR THE WORLD – A McCAIN WIN IN THE U.S. AND A NETANYAHU WIN IN ISRAEL.

The world is hoping and even praying that nothing happens that will upset an Obama win in the upcoming US election. Yet today McCain is either indulging in some serious wishful thinking or he knows something that we don’t. According to some reports, he has told the world that, despite the polls telling us otherwise, he ‘guarantees a win in next week’s election’. He concedes that it’ll be close but, nonetheless, he thinks he’s going to get the job.

Reports are already coming in about voter fraud where there are computer voting systems in place for early voting. Even Fox News is reporting that most Americans are actually expecting widespread voter fraud to take place. With just over a week to go before the election – and remember; a week is a very long time in politics – the window of opportunity for the GOP and/or other ‘interested’ parties to avert an impending disaster for the Republicans is rapidly closing.

On the other side of the world in Israel, another election outcome that could equally determine the future of the Middle East is being observed with as much anticipation as the outcome of the US presidential elections.

Kadima chair, Tzipi Livni, has failed to bring together a coalition government and will now be taking Israel to the polls when it is widely expected that the ultra right-wing Zionist Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud party in cohorts with other ultra right-wing nationalist and expansionist groups will win government. Already the settlers in the occupied territories sense victory as they confront Israeli authorities over the removal of illegal outposts since they know that with Netanyahu they have a friend who shares their expansionist dreams.

But the most terrifying aspect of a McCain win in the US and a Netanyahu win in Israel is the very much enhanced likelihood of a final confrontation with Iran and the fallout, literally and metaphorically, that such a confrontation will have for the Middle East and the world. Netanyahu has in the past hinted at a ‘nuclear strike on Iran’. And, of course, who can forget McCain’s policy of ‘Bomb, bomb, bombing Iran’.

The American people, not just for themselves but for the entire world, must ensure that McCain doesn’t become President. And with an Obama victory the world should then demand peace for everyone in the Middle East.

The alternatives are too shocking to even contemplate.

U.S. ISSUE THINLY VEILED THREAT TO THE IRAQIS.

The US is now putting significant pressure on the Iraqi government to sign up for another three years of US occupation. They are threatening that “the consequences of not having a Sofa (Status of Forces Agreement) and of not having a renewed UN authorisation are pretty dramatic in terms of consequences for our actions”.

According to US chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, ‘A failure to put an agreement in place could mean a loss of ground against al-Qaida and Iranian-backed militias and criminal elements in Iraq’.

The UN mandate which covers the current allied presence in Iraq expires on 31 December this year but US administration officials are anxious to tie up an agreement to extend their occupation for a further three years as soon as possible; presumably before the presidential election on 4 November. If the Iraqi government doesn’t agree to the ‘Sofa’ arrangements proposed then the US will need to seek an extension of the UN mandate. Given the current frosty climate between the US and Russia, a UN Security Council member that holds veto power over any UN mandates, a UN extension of a mandate isn’t necessarily a given just because the US want it.

Since there is no al ‘Qaeda in Iraq’, and a continued American presence in Iraq is more likely to encourage Iranian-backed militias rather than dissipate their influence, and considering that the majority of ‘criminal elements’ in Iraq are those that are finance by the US, it would seem that Iraq would be far better off it were to get rid of the US entirely from their country so that the Iraqi people can determine for themselves their own destiny which something they are going to have to do sooner or later anyway; if not now, then in three years time.

One has to wonder what Secretary of Defence Gates has in mind when he says “the consequences of not having a Sofa (Status of Forces Agreement) and of not having a renewed UN authorisation are pretty dramatic in terms of consequences for our actions”.

How ‘dramatic’?

THE TALIBAN AND THE MYTH OF ‘AL QAEDA’.

Recently the Taliban have sought to instigate talks that may lead to a settlement in Afghanistan which the US and their allies now concede is unwinable. Part of the concessions the Taliban are willing to make are to disassociate themselves from ‘al Qaeda’. A reader has asked me to comment on this. Here is my response.

The attitude of the Taliban with regard to ‘al Qaeda’ is indicative of the extent of influence ‘al Qaeda’ as an organisation really has in Central Asia – about zilch.

Western propagandists would like us to think that ‘al Qaeda’ is an extensive, well-organised internationalist Jihad movement with branches every place where there are American and allied forces. The reality is that ‘al Qaeda’ exists these days largely as a figment of Western propagandist’s somewhat vivid imagination and the words ‘al Qaeda’ are basically used as a convenient catchall label to define to the Western public who the ‘enemy’ is as it relates to the equally overused and inappropriately titled ‘Global War on Terror’. In nearly all cases they are, in fact, simply fighters who are resisting US domination in their respective countries. Among these fighters are those who have come from other countries to help those they consider to be their ‘brothers’ defend their country despite the fact it is not their own country. It is this air of internationalism among young Muslims wanting to help other Muslims in the fight against oppression and persecution and this notion of pan Islamic camaraderie that has given rise to the myth of ‘al Qaeda’ being the overarching enemy. They have become the perpetual enemy. There is barely any discussion in the West about any of today’s trouble spots around the globe where ‘al Qaeda’ doesn’t get a mention.

Rather than try to explain to the Western public the intricate nuances of continually shifting alliances and allegiances of America’s enemies in every theatre of fighting, it is far easier for the US and their allies to simply lump all of these enemies under the one banner called ‘al Qaeda’. And in situations where the Western public know that a particular group is known not to be ‘al Qaeda’ then they are usually referred to simply as an ‘al Qaeda’ linked terrorist organisation or some such.

The fact is the Taliban are not ‘al Qaeda’ and Osama bin Laden is very likely long dead. However, their continued ‘existence’ is required by the US and their allies in order to perpetuate the myth of ‘al Qaeda’ being a terrorist organisation that remains a threat to the West. Once the myth of ‘al Qaeda’ is exposed the US and their allies will then have no ‘enemy’. They would then have to explain what all the wars have really been all about.

The war in Afghanistan has got to the stage now where the invaders have realised that they cannot possibly ever actually ‘win’ the war against the Taliban. They could keep it going forever and a day, but they can’t actually ‘win’ it. The time has come for the two sides to talk. The Taliban realise that the West wants concessions that will make them look as though they’ve achieved something and so the Taliban are happy to play along with the idea that they’ll disassociate themselves from ‘al Qaeda’ in order to achieve their goals in Afghanistan. It works for the Taliban who get to most likely at least play a major role again in the running of their country, and it works for the US and their allies who get to keep the myth of ‘al Qaeda’ going as part of their ongoing ‘Global War on Terror’ elsewhere in the world. It also leaves the options open to reuse the ‘al Qaeda in Afghanistan’ myth if the need arises in the future if things don’t pan out after any settlement there.

Sooner or later though, the world is going to learn that ‘al Qaeda’ was merely a late twentieth-century rag-tag group of disillusioned Jihadists whose numbers probably never exceeded a hundred or so in their heyday but whose continued mythical existence into the twenty-first century was fabricated for the purposes of enhancing US imperial hegemony and neoconservative dreams of Israeli Zionist expansionism and influence in the Middle East.

ONE NEOCON AT THE ‘WEEKLY STANDARD’ IS ALREADY CONCEDING DEFEAT WHILE ANOTHER DRIFTS INTO GA-GA LAND.

Fred Barnes, writing in the neocon comic ‘Weekly Standard’ about Sarah Palin’s future concludes his piece with these words: “Whether they know it or not, Republicans have a huge stake in Palin. If, after the election, they let her slip into political obscurity, they'll be making a tragic mistake.”

If, as the neocons would like, Palin is Vice-President after the election, then why would she slip in obscurity? Surely, if you’re giving your whole-hearted support to the McCain-Palin campaign you shouldn’t really be indulging in such defeatist talk, should you? Unless, of course, the outcome of the Presidential elections, even for the neocons, is already a foregone conclusion.

Perhaps ‘Defeatist Freddy’ should take a leaf out of fellow neocrazy ‘Weekly Standard’ writer, Stephen ‘Smokey’ Hayes, who seems to have been smoking something that’s caused him to once again drift off into ga-ga land. His piece is titled – wait for it – ‘McCain wins round three’!

It just goes to show how out of touch with reality these people are.

AND IN OTHER NEWS TO HAND…

ALLIED AIR STRIKE KILLS MORE AFGHAN CIVILIANS

The caption under the photo in this BBC article reads ‘The issue of civilian casualties is hugely controversial’.

What’s ‘controversial’ about it? What’s to discuss that makes it a 'controversy’? The Americans and their allies have invaded a country and their armed forces are killing the inhabitants of that country. It’s not ‘controversial’; it’s criminal. It should be fairly clear now to all in the West that the Afghan people are not in the slightest bit interested in having Western-style democracy, especially American-style democracy, rammed down their throats. For them it’s a farce. It’s an excuse for those like the US puppet Hamid Karzai and others that involve themselves in it to rip off their own people. They’re sick and tired of people invading them and they’re sick and tired of the corruption and hypocrisy that follows.

The Taliban and their allies are now determined to put an end to the farce. The Western allies in Afghanistan can never win. The best they can hope for is a negotiated peace followed by complete withdrawal. And, for the sake of both the innocent civilians of Afghanistan and the Western kidz that are sent there to kill them, the quicker the better.


THE ‘SUICIDE VEST’: NO ‘AL QAEDA IN IRAQ’ LEADER WOULD BE SEEN DEAD WITHOUT ONE – APPARENTLY.

The number two ‘Al Qaeda in Iraq’ leader, known as Abu Qaswarah or Abu Sara, has, according to a US military statement that we are expected to believe, blown himself up by detonating his ‘suicide vest’ rather than allow himself to be captured.

We are told that ‘US forces were raiding a building where Abu Qaswarah was holed up on October 5 when a gunfight erupted. The militant leader, who suffered gunshot wounds, moved upstairs with his fighters and some women and children, and exploded his suicide vest,’ the report states.

Are we really expected to believe that these people go around 24 hours a day wearing their ‘suicide vests’ just in case they’re caught ‘holed up’ in a house with women and children with them? A far more likely explanation for the explosion that ended up killing the ‘al Qaeda in Iraq’ leader and presumably the women and children and others that were with him, is that the US military either threw or launched grenades into the building.

The imagery of an ‘al Qaeda in Iraq’ leader wearing his ‘suicide vest’ at all times ‘just in case’ he gets caught ‘holed up’ is just the sort of propaganda the dumb and gullible in the West are likely to lap up.

ARE THE REPUBLICANS AND NEOCONS REALLY JUST GOING TO WALK AWAY AFTER JUST EIGHT YEARS OF THE ‘NEW AMERICAN CENTURY’?

It’s gone awfully quiet out there in neocon land. They’re not putting up much of a fight to help their man in to the White House to replace Bush. And what little fight they are putting up seems half-hearted and even defeatist, somehow accepting of what seems inevitable – an Obama win.

‘Weekly Standard’ neocon writer Fred Barnes pens an article titled, ‘Worst Case Scenario: What an Obama administration and a heavily Democratic Congress would accomplish’. Fellow neocon writer, Terry Eastland, also writing in the current issue of the ‘Weekly Standard’, titles his piece; ‘Night of the Living Constitution: Explaining the judicial consequences of an Obama presidency’. They seem somehow resigned to an Obama victory – a victory that will bring about the end of neocon power and influence, and foreshorten their dream of a ‘New American Century’ by some ninety two years.

And where’s Dick Cheney? We haven’t heard anything from him. He always was one to keep a low profile publicly but now it’s almost as if he’s disappeared off the planet. He hasn’t actually dropped off the planet (unfortunately), but rather than being out their pushing McCain and his 'lets have more of the same' ideology, Cheney’s just doing a little bit of quiet campaigning and fundraising up in a Chicago suburb for GOP candidate Marty Ozinga. All very low profile.

So, what’s going on? After all the effort they went to in order to get power by cheating at the ballot box and defrauding the electorate, starting wars with lies and worse, whittling away the Constitution, depriving peoples of their rights, robbing the treasury, awarding themselves massive contracts, handing over massive amounts of taxpayers money to their mates in the banks so the banks can lend it back to the taxpayer, shove the world to the brink of another Great Depression, flex a few wasted and now ineffectual muscles in the general direction of their arch enemy Russia, squawk on pointlessly about a Palestinian state that they know is never going to happen and generally turned a comparatively peaceful and almost flourishing world into a brutish nightmare for millions, are they really just going to walk away?

As I said, it’s gone awfully quiet out there in neocon land. Far too quiet. They’re up to something. Do the neocon writers know something the rest of us don’t to the point where they feel they don’t need to put too much effort into getting their man up? Is this the right-wing lull before the storm of what may be their final thrust for power that will ensure that the ‘New American Century’ will indeed go the full distance?

If, as they say, a week is a long time in politics, then three weeks out from an election can seem like an eternity within which anything happen. Heave a sigh of relief if nothing happens, but don’t say you weren’t warned if it does. The likes of Cheney and his band of power-hungry warmongering lunatics rarely walk away from anything – especially after having come this far.

A ‘SURGE’ IN AFGHANISTAN WON’T WORK BECAUSE THE SUCCESS OF A ‘SURGE’ IN IRAQ WAS A NEOCON MYTH.

Contrary to what the neocons would have us believe the success of the ‘surge’ in Iraq is a myth. The reason why some of the violence dropped off is not because US soldiers were able to eliminate the insurgents but because the US government were able to buy them off. And those they weren’t able to buy off they simply had killed by those that they were able to buy off.

The US was able to take full advantage of some of the internal squabbling between Sunni and Shia groups and militias. Elements of the Sunni insurgency that had been fighting against the US and their allies’ occupation were simply made an offer they couldn’t refuse and formed in to ‘Awakening Councils’ in the pay of the US government; and those that did refuse were killed off – by the ‘Awakening Councils’. Those that didn’t take up the offer were labelled ‘al Qaeda terrorists’ and treated accordingly. Now it looks like those ‘Awakening Council’ arrangements are coming apart. The old animosities are re-emerging and the possibility of open fighting once again being a distinct possibility all of which will demonstrate the extent to which the success of the ‘surge’ was a myth.

In Iraq the ‘al Qaeda’ label is merely a catchall for anyone who fights against the US occupation there. The propaganda value of the ‘al Qaeda’ label is still very powerful when it comes to perpetuating the myth of the ‘surge’ particularly, and the ‘Global War on Terrorism’ generally.

In Afghanistan the situation is so different than in Iraq that a ‘surge’ is not possible and even the commander in chief in Afghanistan, Gen. David McKiernan, concedes this. The simple fact is; the Afghani fighters know from history that a concerted and tenacious defence of their homeland will always see the invader off eventually. Nor are they open to bribes. Those that were able to be bought off were bought off years ago and are either now in the Karzai puppet government or are warlords with their own domains scattered throughout Afghanistan. In other words, there is no one left to buy off.

The Republican vice-presidential candidate’s call for repeating the ‘surge’ in Afghanistan demonstrates the extent of Sarah Palin’s inability to face reality even after seven years of failure in Afghanistan.
The British are waking up to the fact that the war in Afghanistan is unwinable are now tentatively calling for talks. It’s time the US government and the candidates for the presidency did the same.

LIKE HITLER’S ‘THOUSAND YEAR REICH’, THE NEOCONS ‘NEW AMERICAN CENTURY’ FALLS FAR SHORT OF ITS TARGET.

Hitler’s ‘Thousand Year Reich began in 1933 when he became Chancellor of Germany and ended just twelve years later when he committed suicide in his bunker in Berlin surrounded by all of his enemies and with Germany all but totally in ruins in 1945.

So too the Neoconservative’s ‘New American Century’, which began when George W. Bush became President of the United States, seems set to end just as prematurely as their wars continue to be half-heartedly fought without any sign of victory whatsoever and talk of talks with their perceived enemies signalling the end of their dreams of a unipolar world dominated by ‘American Exceptionalism’ and a style of ‘democracy’ that nobody really seems to want – especially if all you end up with is a country like America is today.

As well as its military might having been ill-spent, so too has their treasure chest been ravaged by the tycoons of war machinery and the carpetbaggers that followed behind them. And, not being content merely with the greed of war, the banks of America also tore into the equity of the average American’s biggest and most important investment – his own home.

The end of the ‘New American Century’ nightmare cannot come soon enough for both the peoples of the world that have suffered through their wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Somalia and elsewhere. And nor can it come soon enough for the peoples of the rest of world – and especially for the long-suffering people of America that have had so much blood and treasure stolen from them.

After just eight years the neocon’s dream of a ‘New American Century’ has been as big a failure as the dreams of the dictators of the last century. The quicker they disappear into the pages of the history books the better for the world.

THE PUSH FOR TALKS WITH THE TALIBAN TO END THE WAR IS STARTING TO GET SERIOUS – TO THE HORROR OF THE NEOCONS!

Following up on my piece from last Saturday regarding the West beginning to concede that the war in Afghanistan cannot be won, Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, commander of British forces in Afghanistan, has been quoted in the UK ‘Guardian’ newspaper as having said on Sunday (5 October) confirming that, indeed, the war cannot be won and that, furthermore, the only way out is to initiate talks with the Taliban.

It seems the commander was speaking with some authority from the British government. The Ministry of Defence agreed that they had no problem with warning the UK people not to expect a decisive victory and they may have to settle for a deal with the Taliban.

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, the US, rather than considering talks (but not ruling them out entirely), are, instead, toying with the idea of sending more troops to Afghanistan indicating that the two, until now, staunch allies were drifting apart on Afghan policy.

The Afghan US-sponsored puppet president, Hamid Karzai, has also been thinking along the lines of talks with the Taliban. Karzai is reported to have approached the Saudi government to broker such peace talks. Even the US commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David McKiernan, while on the one hand has asked for some 10,000 more troops, has, in apparent contradiction to US policy, proposed talks stating that the war needs to be dealt with diplomatically.

The warmongering neocons, quite predictably, are not happy with the new developments. When asked recently how the war against the Taliban could be won Karl Rove answered: “More Predators and helicopters!”

AFTER SEVEN YEARS THE WEST FINALLY BEGINS TO SEE THAT THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN CANNOT BE WON.

Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, the British Ambassador to Afghanistan, concedes that the war against the Taliban and allied insurgents cannot be won. He has been reported as saying “The current situation is bad, the security situation is getting worse, so is corruption, and the government has lost all trust.” The Ambassador was also reported as saying that the NATO action against the Taliban will fail and that the only hope for an outcome that may be acceptable is the installation of a dictatorship.

Even the warmongering British neoconservative political commentator Con Coughlin concedes that the allies are getting nowhere fast in Afghanistan saying: “Next week it will be seven years since the war on terror was officially launched when the US military, with British support, unleashed a devastating bombardment on 31 al-Qaeda and Taliban targets in Afghanistan. But despite the heroic efforts of coalition forces [Invading other people’s country and killing their inhabitants is heroic?] and the deployment of vast resources, the West appears no closer to achieving its long-term objective of eradicating the threat posed by Islamist groups and helping to turn failed states into ones capable of sustaining democratic government based on the rule of law.”

This comes on top of chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullin’s assessment last month when he told a Congressional hearing that “I'm not convinced we are winning it in Afghanistan”, adding that the allies should be ‘looking at a new, more comprehensive strategy for the region that would cover both sides of the border, including Pakistan's tribal areas’.

While the various views represented did not amount to a concession that they’d already lost, it does seem that they concede the point that, if they were to carry on as they are, they will eventually lose.

The British government responded to their Ambassadors remarks predictably saying they did not reflect British policy on Afghanistan. The Ambassadors view that an “acceptable dictator” might be the answer flies in the face of US propaganda that demands ‘democracy’, though the present ‘government’ in Kabul, despite Bush’s assertions to the contrary, is hardly representative of the people of Afghanistan. And Mullin’s idea that the war should be extended into Pakistan demonstrates only the failures of seven years of fighting in Afghanistan.

All that and still no sign of Osama bin Laden, the stated reason for the war in the first place.