INTERNMENT AND RESETTLEMENT OPERATIONS—US ARMY FM 3-39.40

“Destroy by any method that will prevent disclosure of contents or reconstruction of the document.”

USArmy-InternmentResettlement

Civilian Internees

1-10. A CI is a civilian who is interned during armed conflict, occupation, or other military operation for security reasons, for protection, or because he or she committed an offense against the detaining power. (JP 3-63) CIs, unless they have committed acts for which they are considered unlawful combatants, generally qualify for protected status according to the GC, which also establishes procedures that must be observedwhen depriving such civilians of their liberty. CIs are to be accommodated separately from EPWs and persons deprived of liberty for any other reason.

Zbig Admits That Global Political Awakening Is Roadblock To Elite Domination

The more that the people “awaken” to the fact that a small segment of the human race considers the rest of us as their “cattle,” the faster that their power over us erodes.  Brzezenski is not sounding a prophetic message of hope to the world’s masses, he is warning the elite that their window of opportunity is slipping away.  That is the great part of True Democracy–the righteous, self-igniting outrage which is a natural bi-product of learning about grievous injustice or the intentional, institutional abuse of our rights or those of our fellow man.  The more we learn, the more dangerous we become to the elite. 

[If they hope to survive their great social experiment involving all of our lives, then they will move against us while they still can.--Peter]

Thatcher/Reagan Destroyed the World Economy for Elitists’ Profit, But Germany Is Still Thriving

Few countries embraced Thatcher’s capitalism

From Mr Marc McDonald.

Sir, In “Right about Britain, Europe and nearly everything” (Comment, April 9), Niall Ferguson writes that Margaret Thatcher was “right about most things”. If this is true, why is Thatcher not fondly remembered today by most British people?

Thatcher’s central economic policy was to deregulate virtually everything, slash social services to the bone and embrace hardcore, dog-eat-dog capitalism. But today who advocates this sort of thing, outside of perhaps a dwindling number of Tea Party extremists in the US?

Prof Ferguson attacks “left-leaning Brits” for being supposedly wrong about Thatcher. But as I recall, Thatcher’s foes predicted that her policies would decimate the middle class. They have been vindicated.

A great deal of the economic prosperity of the Thatcher years was really more because of the North Sea oil bonanza, rather than the Iron Lady’s policies.

Outside of the US, few nations have ever embraced Thatcher’s slash-and-burn methods. In continental Europe today, for example, few people want anything to do with “Anglo-American” capitalism. The same is true of much of today’s Latin America.

As far as Thatcher’s crushing of the unions and deregulating the economy, I would challenge Prof Ferguson as to whether even this was necessarily a good thing.

Germany, for example, still has some of the most powerful unions in the world, as well as a heavily regulated economy. And yet Germany today still has a strong middle class and a world-beating high-technology manufacturing base. Germany is one of the world’s leading capital surplus nations, while Britain runs massive current account deficits. And yet Germany accomplished its enviable economic success by rejecting the Thatcher/Reagan economic model.

Marc McDonald, Fort Worth, TX, US

Indian Hangings Reveal Slide Towards Fascism and Mob Rule

Affzal hanging was to appease communal fascist forces: CPI(ML)

[There are plenty of reasons to fear Hindutva terrorism.  Their recent record of utter barbarism is on the record for all to see (SEE:  31 Convicted In Gujarat Riots Case for Burning 33 Muslims Alive).  It is easy to see the powerful, primal energies that the radical Hindu movement is playing with in the the painted faces of the wild-eyed followers.  They are an explosion waiting to happen, waiting for some powerful political spellbinder to come along who knows how to unleash that primitive anger at a specific target.  If the Hindu movement comes to power it will likely be on a river of blood.]

 

 

 

 

Affzal hanging was to appease communal fascist forces: CPI(ML)

Place: New Delhi | Agency: PTI

Terming the hanging of Afzal Guru as “travesty of justice and democracy”, the CPI(ML) on Saturday said it was carried out to “appease the communal fascist forces who want to make Narendra Modi India’s prime minister.”

“Faced with growing popular opposition and resistance on every front, the Congress party and the UPA government are desperately trying to appease the BJP and the communal-fascist brigade,” General Secretary of CPI(ML) Liberation, Dipankar Bhattacharya, said in a statement in New Delhi.

Claiming that Guru was a surrendered Kashmiri militant who had given himself up to the BSF in 1993 and had since been working in the shadow of the Special Task Force of Kashmir Police, he said Guru was implicated in the December 13, 2001, Parliament attack case.

“He had no lawyer to represent him when the trial court convicted him without any direct evidence and yet the Supreme Court upheld the death penalty in the name of satisfying ‘the collective conscience of society’ even as the high court and the Supreme Court passed adverse remarks on the shoddy nature of investigation and dubious quality of evidence produced by the police,” the Left leader said.

“Nobody has ever been hanged in this country for the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom, for all the anti-Muslim violence including the horrific Mumbai and Surat riots of 1992 and the 2002 Gujarat genocide, or for the massacres of dalits, adivasis and other oppressed sections by private armies or the state.”

“Far from satisfying the ‘collective conscience’ of the Indian society, the hanging of Afzal Guru only exposes the double standards of justice,” Bhattacharya said, adding that the democratic movement in the country “will reject and resist this Congress-BJP collusion and intensify the battle for justice and democratic rights”.

US officials confess to targeting Iran’s civilian population

Franklin Lamb

Condemned by every syllable they utter Tehran – Azadeh, a graduate law student from Tehran University, on the Sidelines of Iran’s Third Annual Hollywoodism ( Www.hollywoodism.orghttp ) reminded her interlocutors, of the obvious Damming admissions last week by two U.S. politicians: “It would be a defense lawyer’s worst nightmare wouldn’t it? I mean to have one’s clients, in this case the Vice-President of the United States and the outgoing Secretary of state confess so publicly to serial international crimes against a civilian population? “ The confessions and the crimes, she correctly enumerated to her audience, were those admitted to by US Vice-President Joe Biden and outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton this past week. Both of the US officials, in discussing US relations with the Islamic Republic, openly admitted that the US-led sanctions against Iran (and Syria) are politically motivated and constitute a “soft-war” against the nearly 80 million people of Iran (23 million people in Syria) in order to achieve regime change. Mrs. Clinton, was the first of the dynamic duo to be heard from. She acknowledged that the harsh US sanctions were intended to target and send the people of Iran a message. ”So we hope that the Iranian people will make known their concerns … so my message to Iranians is do something about this.” Some listening concluded she meant food riots and inflation riots to overthrow the Iranian government. An Australian Broadcasting Company interviewer asked Clinton on January 31 of last year: “If you have issues with the government of Iran, why destroy the Iranian people with the current sanctions in place? It’s very difficult to find certain medicines in Iran. Where is your sense of humanity? “ What the Clinton interrogator had in mind, she explained later, were the US-led sanctions reducing Iran’s GDP growth (-1.1% GDP) resulting in an inflation of 21.0% that is being felt mostly by the civilian population. As well as periodic food shortages in the supermarkets of such staples such as rice, there are price rises on everything. For example, per page printing for students is up as much as 400% and the cost of a used car up 300%. In general, supermarket items have risen 100 to 300 percent or higher over the past twenty-four months and, devasTating for many, certain lifesaving medicines are no longer available. Clinton: “Well, first, let me say on the medicine and on food and other necessities, there are no sanctions.” This statement is utter nonsense and Mrs. Clinton knows it. The targeting process by the US Treasury Department is well entrenched in Washington. When dear reader is next in Washington, DC, perhaps on a tour bus riding down NW Pennsylvania Avenue following a visit to the US Capitol, consider getting off the bus at 15th and Pennsylvania at the US Department of the Treasury. Walk around the main building and you will see an Annex building. This building, as Clinton knows well, and like Biden, has visited more than once, houses the Office of Financial Assets Control (OFAC). The well-funded agency’s work includes precisely targeting “food and medicines and other necessities” in order to force the civilian population of Iran to achieve regime change. For more than two hundred years, since the War of 1812, when OFAC was founded to sanction the British, the office has become expert at imposing sanctions and it has done so more than 2000 times. OFAC currently uses a large team of specialists and computers to think-up, design, test, and send to AIPAC and certain pro-Zionist officials and members of congress their work-product topped off by recommendations. OFAC and its Treasury Department associates have had a hand in virtually every US sanction applied to Iran since President Jimmy Carter issued Executive Order 12170 in November 1979 freezing about $ 12 billion in Iranian assets, including bank deposits, gold and other properties. From the State Sponsor of Terrorism Designation Act in 1979 to the Syria Accountability Act of 2004, more than a dozen Presidential Executive Orders including the 2011-2012 Executive orders which froze the US property of high-rankling Syrian and Iranian officials and more broadly EO 13582 which froze all governmental assets of the Syrian government and prohibited Americans from doing business with the Syrian government and banned all US import of Syrian petroleum products. What OFAC does with its data base is science not art. It can calculate quite precisely the economic effect on the civilian population of a single action designating one company, bank, government entity or infrastructure system of a country. OFAC, on behalf of its government, electronically wages a cold war against its civilian targets. This week OFAC and the Treasury Department blacklisted Iran’s state broadcasting authority, Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, responsible for broadcast policy in Iran and overseas production at Iranian television and radio channels, potentially limiting viewing and listening opportunities for Iran’s civilian population. Its director, Ezzatollah Zarghami, was included in the action. Additionally sanctioned are Iran’s Internet-policing agencies and a major electronics producer. David S. Cohen, the pro-Zionist Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, who oversees the OFAC sanctions effort, reportedly following meetings with Israeli officials, said last week’s actions were meant to “tighten the screws and intensify the economic pressure against the Iranian regime.” In reality, the sanctions target the civilian population and the “Iranian regime” won’t be much affected. The same applies to Syria. Despite the public relations language that “food and medicine are exempted from the brutal US-led sanctions, as OFAC well knows, the reality is something else. They know well the chilling effects of the sanctions on international suppliers of medicines and food stuffs with respect to a targeted country. The US Treasury department has thousands of gigabytes of data confirming that the boards of directors of international business do not, and will not allow their companies to risk millions of dollars in profits by technically violating any of the thousands of details in the sanctions – many of which are subject to interpretation – for the sake of doing business with Iran or Syria. This is why there are severe shortages of medicines and certain foodstuffs in these sanctioned countries and to state otherwise is Orwellian News-Speak. OFAC does not operate in a vacuum. It works closely with other US agencies including the 16 intelligence agencies that together make up the UN Intelligence Community. Together they have applied sanctions of great breadth and severity against the civilian populations of Syria and Iran. These sanctions have been bolstered on occasion by several direct and / or green-lighted Israeli assassinations and cyber-assaults, hoping to foment civil unrest to achieve regime change and other political goals. A few days after Mrs.Clinton’s somewhat inadvertent confession that the US government intentionally targets the civilian population of Iran, Vice President Joe Biden chimed in on the 4th of February that the US was ready to hold direct negotiations with Iran but added the caveat, “We have also made clear that Iran’s leaders need not sentence their people to economic deprivation, “acknowledging as did Hillary that the US sanctions are intended to target and harm the Iranian and Syrian people. A senior Obama administration official described the latest step as” a significant turning of the screw, “meaning that the people of Iran face a” stark choice “between bowing to US demands and reviving their oil revenue, the country’s economic lifeblood or more and more sanctions will follow until they do. This targeting of Iran’s and Syria’s civilian population by US-led sanctions is a massive violation of the principles, standards and rules of international law and their most fundamental underpinnings which is the protection of civilians. Some examples: The 1977 Additional Protocols to the 1949 Geneva Conventions prohibit any measure that has the effect of depriving a civilian population of objects indispensable to its survival. Article 70 of Protocol I mandates relief operations to aid a civilian population that is “not adequately provided” with supplies and Article 18 of Protocol II requires relief operations for a civilian population that suffers “undue hardship owing to a lack of supplies essential for its survival , such as foodstuffs and medical supplies. “ Prohibition on Starvation as a Method of Warfare • Under international humanitarian law, civilians enjoy a right to humanitarian assistance during armed conflicts. • Art. 23 of the Fourth Geneva Convention obligates states to facilitate the free passage and distribution of relief goods including medicines, foodstuffs, clothing and tonics intended for children under 15, expectant mothers, and maternity cases. • Art. 70 of Additional Protocol I prohibits interfering with delivery of relief goods to all members of the civilian population. • US-led sanctions are prohibited by the principle of proportionality found in Arts.51 and 57 of Additional Protocol I. • Under the terms of Art. 3 common to the 1949 Geneva Conventions, humanitarian and relief actions must be taken. Pursuant to Art. 18 (2) of Additional Protocol II, relief societies must be allowed to offer their services to provide humanitarian relief • The US-led sanctions violate the Rule of Distinction between civilians and combatants The Right to life The US-led sanctions violate the right to life incorporated in numerous international human rights instruments including Art. 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1966; Art. 2 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, 1950; and Art.4 of the African Charter of Human Rights, 1981. The Rights of the Child One of the groups most vulnerable to US-led sanctions in Syria and Iran are children. The rights of children are laid down in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989, which currently stands as the most widely ratified international agreement. Most relevant in the context of the US-led sanctions are Arts. 6 and 24 of the Convention, according to which every child has the inherent right to life and the right to the highest attainable standard of health and access to medical services. If “terrorism” means, as the United States government defines it as the targeting of civilians in order to induce political change from their government, what is it called when the American government itself applies intense economic suffering on a civilian population, causing malnutrition, illnesses , starvation and death in order to induce regime change? The US-led sanctions against Iran and Syria are illegal, inhumane, ineffective, immoral and outrageous. They must be resisted every day by every person of good will, everywhere, until they are withdrawn. Franklin Lamb is doing research in the Islamic Republic of Iran and is reachable c / o Fplamb@gmail.com

Source: Al-Manar Website

New Japanese Minister Demonstrates His Malthusian, Medieval Mentality, Advocates Letting the Old Die

Let elderly people ‘hurry up and die’, says Japanese minister

Taro Aso says he would refuse end-of-life care and would ‘feel bad’ knowing treatment was paid for by government

• Justin McCurry in Tokyo

Taro Aso referred to elderly patients who are no longer able to feed themselves as ‘tube people’. Photograph: Yoshikazu Tsuno/AFP/Getty Images

Japan‘s new government is barely a month old, and already one of its most senior members has insulted tens of millions of voters by suggesting that the elderly are an unnecessary drain on the country’s finances.

Taro Aso, the finance minister, said on Monday that the elderly should be allowed to “hurry up and die” to relieve pressure on the state to pay for their medical care.

“Heaven forbid if you are forced to live on when you want to die. I would wake up feeling increasingly bad knowing that [treatment] was all being paid for by the government,” he said during a meeting of the national council on social security reforms. “The problem won’t be solved unless you let them hurry up and die.”

Aso’s comments are likely to cause offence in Japan, where almost a quarter of the 128 million population is aged over 60. The proportion is forecast to rise to 40% over the next 50 years.

The remarks are also an unwelcome distraction for the new prime minister, Shinzo Abe, whose first period as Japan’s leader ended with his resignation after just a year, in 2007, partly due to a string of gaffes by members of his cabinet.

Rising welfare costs, particularly for the elderly, were behind a decision last year to double consumption [sales] tax to 10% over the next three years, a move Aso’s Liberal Democratic party supported.

The 72-year-old, who doubles as deputy prime minister, said he would refuse end-of-life care. “I don’t need that kind of care,” he said in comments quoted by local media, adding that he had written a note instructing his family to deny him life-prolonging medical treatment.

To compound the insult, he referred to elderly patients who are no longer able to feed themselves as “tube people”. The health and welfare ministry, he added, was “well aware that it costs several tens of millions of yen” a month to treat a single patient in the final stages of life.

Cost aside, caring for the elderly is a major challenge for Japan’s stretched social services. According to a report this week, the number of households receiving welfare, which include family members aged 65 or over, stood at more than 678,000, or about 40% of the total. The country is also tackling a rise in the number of people who die alone, most of whom are elderly. In 2010, 4.6 million elderly people lived alone, and the number who died at home soared 61% between 2003 and 2010, from 1,364 to 2,194, according to the bureau of social welfare and public health in Tokyo.

The government is planning to reduce welfare expenditure in its next budget, due to go into force this April, with details of the cuts expected within days.

Aso, who has a propensity for verbal blunders, later attempted to clarify his comments. He acknowledged his language had been “inappropriate” in a public forum and insisted he was talking only about his personal preference.

“I said what I personally believe, not what the end-of-life medical care system should be,” he told reporters. “It is important that you be able spend the final days of your life peacefully.”

It is not the first time Aso, one of Japan’s wealthiest politicians, has questioned the state’s duty towards its large elderly population. In 2008, while serving as prime minister, he described “doddering” pensioners as tax burdens who should take better care of their health.

“I see people aged 67 or 68 at class reunions who dodder around and are constantly going to the doctor,” he said at a meeting of economists. “Why should I have to pay for people who just eat and drink and make no effort? I walk every day and do other things, but I’m paying more in taxes.”

He had already angered the country’s doctors by telling them they lacked common sense, made a joke about Alzheimer’s patients, andpronounced “penniless young men” unfit for marriage.

In 2001, he said he wanted Japan to become the kind of successful country in which “the richest Jews would want to live”.

He once likened an opposition party to the Nazis, praised Japan’s colonial rule in Taiwan and, as foreign minister, told US diplomats they would never be trusted in Middle East peace negotiations because they have “blue eyes and blond hair”.

While figures released on Monday showed a record 2.14 million Japanese were receiving welfare in October 2012, Aso has led a life of privilege few of his compatriots could hope to match.

He is the grandson of Shigeru Yoshida, an influential postwar prime minister, and is married to the daughter of another former premier.

While campaigning for the premiership in 2008, Aso refused to acknowledge the use of hundreds of allied prisoners of war by his family’s coal mining business during the second world war. He served as president of the firm’s successor, Aso Cement, from 1973-79

Do Indian Govt. Leaders Trust In Their American Counterparts Enough To Risk Nuclear War with Pakistan?

[In the unfolding aggression in Kashmir, which side is the aggressor?  Listening to terrorist leader Hafiz Saeed tell Pakistan's side in the report below, it is pretty obvious that the militant culture of Pakistan wants to convince us that all of this is a scheme by the "devious" Indians, on behalf of her Imperial American/British sponsors, intended to punish Pakistan.

Risking nuclear war with a significantly more substantial nuclear force is pure insanity and very few Pakistanis think that all Indians are insane enough to risk this.  Pakistan holds a clear nuclear strike superiority over India.  Does Mr. Saeed suggest that the Delhi govt. has such great confidence that the two-faced American govt. will come to India's rescue that they would risk inviting the consequences over a few square kilometers of Kashmiri ice?  India has been achieving many of its goals in a non-military fashion, managing to dominate the sub-continent, including Pakistan, by pursuing economic growth through development and diplomacy.   Why would India endanger the eventual peaceful domination that it is planned and  its inevitable rewards, for the sake of provoking its own nuclear destruction?

In this, as in all things, Hafiz Saeed speaks with the voice of a lunatic.  Following a lunatic is far worse than following a blind man.  If the people of Pakistan allow this fundamentalist lunatic who fancies himself to be an "Islamic scholar" to deceive the Nation into allowing him to engineer a state of war with India, then they will surely deserve the consequences.  It is no secret that militant Kashmiri leaders have only recently returned from a lobbying trip to Islamabad, on the pretext of seeking help to defend against an anticipated escalation of the "jihad" over Kashmir, after the American withdrawal from Afghanistan.  On that trip the militants of the Hurriyat Conference also met militant/terrorist leaders,  Hafiz Saeed and Syed Salahuddin, asking them for their help, in case the Pak Army refuses to help, or has its hands full with the fallout from Afghanistan.  In his meeting with the radical leaders, Gen. Kayani allegedly ruled-out support for any renewed militancy in Kashmir, seemingly absolving the Pak high command of any responsibility for actions later taken by the LeT militants.  But that was the same ploy that was used by Gen. Musharraf to start the last Kargil war, claiming that the first infiltrators that he allowed to cross the LoC were "militants," even though it was later proven that they were paramilitary commandos.   It was a very effective ruse for a short while, until India began to capture prisoners, who turned-out to be Pakistani soldiers.  These original veterans of Kargil went on afterwards to father some of the most radical sectarian terrorist outfits to come out of Pakistan (Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Lashkar-e-Taiba, al-Qaeda).

If this latest eruption of militancy lasts long enough, it will probably play-out the same way, as well, meaning that any commando attack upon the Indian side of the Line of Control has to clear the Pakistani defensive line, first.  If the Army does nothing to stop them from crossing their lines, or encourages militants to pass on through, then that is an admission of guilt for such major attacks by "mujahidin"/"ultras".  An aggression by Pakistani militants is an attack by forces controlled by, if not still sponsored by, the ISI, who contract most, if not all of their work from the CIA.  Think of it this way, an attack upon Indians by Pakistani militants (just like the Mumbai scenario), is an attack upon India by the CIA.]

“The Lashkar-e-Taiba was from the outset clearly a U.S. enterprise.”

Kashmir violence could turn “ugly”: Pakistani Islamist

By Bushra Taskeen

ISLAMABAD | Fri Jan 11, 2013 7:15am EST

(Reuters) – The Pakistani Islamist leader accused of masterminding the 2008 Mumbai massacre said India was trying to destabilize Pakistan and predicted violence in the disputed region of Kashmir could get “ugly”.

“We do not want any force to be used or any military operation for this. But the Indians are opting for the other alternative,” Hafez Saeed told Reutersin a telephone interview on Friday.

Saeed founded Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the militant group which India blames for the rampage in Mumbai, where gunmen killed 166 people over three days. He denies any wrongdoing and links to militants.

Saeed also denied allegations by Indian officials that he had recently visited Kashmir, potentially to incite action against India, just before the recent outbreak of the worst violence in the territory since the nuclear-armed neighbors agreed to a ceasefire nearly a decade ago.

In the third fatal attack in Kashmir this week, a Pakistani soldier was killed on Thursday by “unprovoked” Indian fire, a Pakistan army spokesman said.

He was shot while manning a post in the Battal sector of Kashmir, which is split between the two sides by a heavily fortified border known as the Line of Control (LoC), the spokesman said.

Saeed accused India of trying to disrupt the peace process with Pakistan and dragging its feet on the long-standing issue of Kashmir.

“This is their usual practice. Betraying the international community and destabilizing Pakistan,” said Saeed. “And that’s what they are doing this time.”

India and Pakistan have fought three wars since becoming independent from Britain in 1947, two of them over the Himalayan region of Kashmir. India considers the entire region of snow-capped mountains and fertile valleys an integral part of its territory.

Muslim Pakistan contests that and demands implementation of a 1948 U.N. Security Council resolution for a plebiscite to determine the wishes of the mostly Muslim people of Kashmir.

Relations had shown signs of improving in the past year after souring again in 2008 after the Mumbai bloodshed.

CAUSE FOR CONCERN IN U.S.

“Whenever the peace process starts between the two nations, something comes up from the Indian side to disrupt the process,” said Saeed.

Both governments have expressed anger over the latest Kashmir attacks even as senior officials sought to calm fears that right-wing groups could seize the opportunity to derail years of diplomatic rapprochement.

Tensions over Kashmir are a cause for concern in Washington, which has been pushing for an improvement in ties between the rival nations so that Pakistan can focus on helping the United States promote peace in Afghanistan.

India has repeatedly called on Pakistan to bring Saeed to justice, an issue that has stood in the way of rebuilding relations between the two sides since the carnage in Mumbai.

India is furious that Pakistan has not detained Saeed since it handed over evidence against him to Islamabad. Washington has offered a reward of $10 million for information leading to Saeed’s capture.

Pakistan supported militants fighting Indian forces in Kashmir region for years but began to rein them in after the September 11 attacks on the United States.

Critics say Pakistan’s policies have created militant groups that now answer to no one and fuel instability.

Pakistan faces security challenges from an array of militant groups, from organizations capable of attacks on Indian forces in Kashmir to sectarian Sunni militants who bomb minorities such as Shi’ites.

Saeed blamed India for this week’s wave of bombings on Shi’ites in the city of Quetta which killed 82 people.

“Whether it’s ethnic problems, provisional unrest or religious target killings and the Sunni-Shi’ite issue, the entire planning and execution of such attacks have been managed by the Indian intelligence agencies,” he said.

Pakistan summoned India’s High Commissioner over the Kashmir violence, a Pakistani foreign ministry official said, adding that Islamabad had expressed its “concern and frustration”.

Saeed said India was not interested in resolving the Kashmir issue.

“They want to escalate the violence in order to avoid a permanent resolution …,” he said. “This border tension can turn to an ugly situation like a war and we want to avoid it.”

(Reporting by Bushra Taskeen; Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Saudis Have Purchased the American Government and Victory for the Global “Caliphate” of Radical Islam

[Saudi trillions have taken over American Govt. and bribed the world into accepting victory for "al-Qaeda," the international Islamist terrorist organization.  Saudi Arabia has been transplanting this Taliban form of government all over the world, beginning with our export of their Wahhabi disciples to Afghanistan and Pakistan, beginning in late 87.  We called these early "al-Qaeda" "freedom-fighters" and later-on, "mujahedeen."  We screamed bloody murder whenever 17 "al-Qaeda" terrorists helped to destroy famous American landmarks, while disavowing our own intimate connections to Al-Q.  Bin Laden worked for us until he died from American-inflicted wounds in an Afghan cave in 2001.  Ilyas Kashmiri, Hakeemullah Mehsud, Mullah Dadullah, were all American employees--yet we have used everyone of them as an excuse to send Pentagon death machines to kill even more civilian children.  

Pakistan's government has sold the Pakistani people into lifetime bondage to America and the Saudis, not to mention that "Fat Pig of Qatar"!  Worst of all, the world's only Democratic Islamic Republic has become a willing pawn in the hand of Shaitan himself.  You have fully given yourselves over unto the dark side, to work in opposition to the will of Allah Himself, if you accept the big Saudi bribes.  You invoke the Prophet and Bless His Name everyday, yet you have allowed your government to sell your souls into servitude to the evil posers who claim to be the Guardians of the Holy Places, although they have helped to subject all of the Muslim Ummah into a submissive state in the mold of a subjugated Bahrain, or Palestine.  

The Saudis have played their fat hands very well, lying constantly, betting extravagantly, bribing the opposition out of their underpants.  It is Saudi bribery that is winning the global war for the terrorists.  Militant, radical, murderous "Islamists" (Wahhabis) stand ready to win the war of terror because of Arab petrodollars, even though we will claim "victory" along with them, after having waged bloody war for twelve years, in the name of eliminating all "al-Qaeda."  We have destroyed a succession of Muslim countries with guided missiles and heavy bombers, killing in excess of two million Muslims (most of them innocent), on the excuse that we were hunting "al-Qaeda," even though Al-Q worked under contract for the American and Saudi governments.  

Pakistan, admittedly, owes a very large debt to the Saudis.  It was Saudi money which financed the building of the very first "Islamic nuclear bomb."  It was Saudi money which finances nearly all of the Pakistani madrassa school system--the only school available to most of the young Pashtun boys.  Yet, if Pakistan contracts the next phase of Saudi/American foreign policy and continues to provide foot-soldiers and "private contractors" for the staging of World War III, then Pakistan will perish in the ashes left in its own wake.  How Pakistan goes, will determine how much of the Earth will go, along with it.  Your country may be about to become history, if it accepts all the Saudi/Qatari/American gold held-out before it.  If the forces of "Democracy" were ever really going to stand-up for Pakistan, this would surely be the time to do it.]

The Saudis return to Afghanistan

By M K Bhadrakumar

The visit of Pakistan Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar to Saudi Arabia comes at a defining moment in regional security. The two countries are renewing their brotherly bonds as they embark on a new journey of partnership and alliance.

The Indian pundits were whistling in the dark when they fancied not too long ago that Delhi, with able help from Washington, has hijacked the Saudi regime away from the Pakistani embrace. Some even fancied a US-Indian-Saudi regional security alliance in the making!

But the ground realities are that Afghanistan is once again becoming a common Saudi-Pakistani enterprise, as in the Taliban era in the 1990s.

The underpinnings of the Saudi-Pakistani partnership in the Hindu Kush are strikingly the same as twenty years ago — injecting Islamism as the leitmotif of politics in Afghanistan; envisaging the role of an Islamist regime in Kabul in regional politics; using Salafism to threaten Shi’ite Iran and so on.

Clearly, this latest Saudi-Pakistani enterprise enjoys American backing. But it has a raison d’etre of its own. The point is, a wide-ranging Saudi-Pakistani regional partnership is surfacing. Pakistani ‘volunteers’ are reportedly fighting in Syria at present.

They enjoy Saudi-Qatari funding and military assistance and are the foot soldiers of the campaign for ‘regime change’ in Damascus, which the US and its Arab allies expound.

Besides, in deference to Saudi wishes, Pakistan has rolled back its recent years’ dalliance with Iran and mothballed the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline project despite Tehran’s extravagant offer to finance construction work on the Pakistani side. President Asif Zardari abruptly cancelled a scheduled visit to Tehran.

Pakistan is quietly dumping its ‘Iran connection’ and extracting reciprocal benefits out of Saudi Arabia. Khar met with the Saudi Crown Prince Salman Bin Abdul Aziz who is also the deputy prime minister and defence minister. The two countries decided to ‘institutionalize’ their strategic ties. Now, what it implies will bear watch.

From the Saudi viewpoint, Afghanistan becomes a highly crucial theatre in its strategy to ‘contain’ Iran. The US military bases in Afghanistan have been used as training camps for the Jundullah group, which undertook terrorist strikes in Iran’s Sistan-Baluchistan province. The latest Iranian reports suggest that the camps in the US bases in Afghanistan are also training the Mujahideen-e-Khalq terrorists.

In the recent past, Tehran got some degree of cooperation from Pakistan in preventing the Jundullah’s cross-border strikes from the Baluchistan province. There will be growing unease in Tehran that the graph of Saudi influence on the Pakistani security agencies could be rising in the coming period.

The Saudis are obsessed with Iran’s rise as regional power and will try to counter Tehran’s surge, no matter what it takes. Islamabad’s partnership can be a potential game changer in the Saudi game plan vis-a-vis Iran. In turn, Saudis will be wiling to bankroll Pakistan.

The curious part is that the US is assembling virtually the same cabal of states in the Hindu Kush which are acting as its proxies and sidekicks currently in the upheaval in the Middle East — Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Pakistan’s gravitation toward this ‘axis’ of Sunni Muslim states as a hireling will have far-reaching implications for regional security — Pakistan being the biggest Sunni Muslim country on the planet.

The politics of 2013 in the Greater Middle East will significantly devolve upon the Sunni-Shia sectarian rivalry, because, from the US and Saudi perspective, it is a tactically useful (and necessary) digression away from the core issues of that region’s politics such as democratization and reform, Israel_Arab relations, Palestinian problem, etc.

Indeed, Pakistan will do well to stay clear of the US-Saudi regional agenda, given the history of sectarian rivalries within Pakistan itself — and the near-certainty that the Saudi attempt to impose Salafism as the state ideology in Afghanistan will be resisted by the Hazara Shi’ites and many regional countries.

Of course, the secretary-general of Iran’s National Security Council Saeed Jalili, who is a key figure in the foreign-policy establishment in Tehran, is on a visit to New Delhi at the invitation of NSA, Shivshankar Menon.

Alas, foresight is very often in short supply in the Pakistani policies and in this case, the Pakistani elites will find it all but irresistible to stay away from the honey pots that Washington and Riyadh hold in front of them. As the Americans would put it, ‘Have gun — will travel’.

 

Hard Truth About One of the Bush War Criminals

Globe

[SEE:  The Old Vampire Doesn’t Look So Good]

Defense Contractor NBC honors ailing war criminal George H.W. Bush with Freemasonic “33 photo” propaganda tribute

By Martin Hill
LibertyFight.com

A few points to start out: NBC is not an impartial media outlet. George H.W. Bush is not a respectable, admirable man or a national hero. And “33″ is not an insignificant number- It is quite relevant and meaningful, in some circles at least.

NBC is owned by General Electric, a “defense contractor and the 2nd largest company in world according to Forbes“, which has received over $16 billion dollars in bailouts from American taxpayers. They build and sell engines for the F-16 fighter aircraft and Apache Block III helicopters. For them, war is literally a profit racket; so it makes sense that they would “honor” warmongers.

NBC news far from impartial- they shill for the military-industrial complex and in 2003, fired Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Peter Arnett after Arnett reported the truth from Iraq: “America is reappraising the battlefield, delaying the war against Iraq, maybe a week and rewriting the war plan. The first plan has failed because of Iraqi resistance. Now they are trying to write another plan- So our reports about civilian casualties here, about the resistance of the Iraqi forces, are going back to the United States. It helps those who oppose the war when you challenge the policy to develop their arguments.”

As Steve Watson of PrisonPlanet.com reported in 2010,

“MSNBC is the epitome of the controlled corporate mainstream media, being as it is 80% owned by General Electric, operated by military industrial complex giant General Dynamics, whose primary business comes from supplying arms and weapons systems to the US government and its international allies. It is not and never has been sympathetic to anti-establishment or anti-war activism – this is the same network that cancelled Jesse Ventura’s talk show simply because he opposed the Iraq war”.

On December 26, NBC reported ”George H.W. Bush in ‘guarded condition’ in intensive care, battling elevated fever, spokesman says”.

NBC didn’t even break the story. Twenty days earlier on December 6, THE GLOBE tabloid magazine had already broke the story which hit supermarket checkout racks, with a front cover photo and headline which read“GEORGE BUSH, 88, PLEADS: LET ME DIE AT HOME!” The GLOBE article stated in part, “Hospitalized with a dangerous lung condition, former President George H.W. Bush knows his days are numbered and has asked to be allowed to die at home.”

Featured prominantly in the Johnny-come-lately NBC article was an elaborate slideshow, titled ‘The life and times of George H.W. Bush‘. Coincidentally, the slideshow presentation includes thirty-three photos, summarizing the 41st president’s life. The collection of historic and ‘cute’ photos attempts to present a dignified, affable codger who deserves to be honored. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth.

The number thirty-three holds quite a significance in Freemasonic circles. The numbers 11, 13 and 33 are the Illuminati / Freemason Signature. In their propaganda piece preceding the likely demise of the freemasonic former president, there are many flattering photos of Bush with family, with other politicians, playing horseshoes, etc. But NBC left out several photos of the REAL George H.W. Bush which should have been included.

There are no photos of George H.W. Bush in Dallas on the morning of John F. Kennedy’s assassination standing in front of the Texas Book Depository in Dealey Plaza, but the photos can be seen here. The photo of the FBI memo acknowledging that Bush was a CIA opeative at that time can be seen here: “FBI director J. Edgar Hoover wrote this memo 5 days after the assassination, naming George Bush as a CIA officer… “The substance of the forgoing information was orally furnished to Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency and Captain William Edwards of the Defense Intelligence Agency on November 23, 1963, by Mr. V.T. Forsyth of this Bureau.”

There are no photos of George H.W. Bush at the MENA, Arkansas drug running operation with Bill Clinton. The allegation “that Mena is a myth, that the CIA never ran cocaine through the Mena airport, or laundered the proceeds through various Arkansas financial institutions including Morgan Guarantee, Madison S&L, Worthen Bank, and most importantly, the Arkansas Development Finance Authority” is thoroughly debunked here. There is no photo of George Bush with legendary CIA agent Felix Rodriguez a.k.a. “Mr. Gomez” who ran the Mexican portion of the Iran-Contra guns and drug running operation on MSNBC, but the photo can be seen here.  

[Also here for more information on Mena.]

There are no photos of George H.W. Bush with the underage male homosexual hookers that admittedly toured his White House in 1989, as acknowledged in national newspapers and on the national TV news at the time: See TV News: Call boys in Bush Sr’s Whitehouse and the actual newspaper articles from The Washington Times: HOMOSEXUAL PROSTITUTION INQUIRY ENSNARES VIPS WITH REAGAN, BUSH June 29, 1989. [More info on this matter here and here.]

There are no photos of George H.W. Bush reacting to the half a million innocent Iraqis who died a s a result of of his sanctions during the first Iraq war. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told 60 Minutes on May 12, 1996 that the deaths were “worth it”:

Lesley Stahl: “We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?”
Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price -we think the price is worth it.”

Perhaps Bush shares the same views as his wife Barbara, who told ABC’s “Good Morning America” on March 18, 2003 “Why should we hear about body bags and deaths? Oh, I mean, it’s not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?” In December 2011, current Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who was formerly the CIA Director, similarly said that the systematic slaughter of 1.5 million Iraqis and the destruction of their nation was also “worth it”: “As difficult as [the Iraq invasion and occupation] was, and the cost in both American and Iraqi lives, “I think the price has been worth it, to establish a stable government in a very important region of the world”.

There are no photos of George H.W. Bush at his Masonic Yale Skulll and Bones ‘tomb’ which admitedly has skeletons of dead human babies hanging on the walls: “Dozens of skeletons and skulls, human and animal, dangle from the walls, on which German and Latin phrases have been chiseled (“Whether poor or rich, all are equal in death”) [Skull & Bones Society - A rare look inside Skull and Bones, the Yale secret society by Alexandra Robbins. See also Cremationofcare skull & bones archive and Bilderberg.org for more details on this matter.]

Bush’s father Prescott, the Nazi financier, and his son, George W. Bush, were also both members of Skull and Bones. In his autobiography, George W. Bush wrote “My senior year (at Yale University) I joined Skull and Bones, a secret society … so secret, I can’t say anything more.” [White House 'Bonesman' leads nation into the dark USATODAY 9/25/02.] In 2004 both George W. Bush and his cousin John Kerry laughed about the secrecy of their Skull and Bones memberships in separate TV interviews, which can be seen here.

NBC included no photos of George H.W. Bush taking part in occult ceremonies at Bohemian Grove performing mock human sacrifies to Molech and worshiping satan with other attendees Newt Gingrich, Henry Kissinger and Arnold Schwarzenegger. But photos of the Bushes, father and son together at Bohemian Grove, can be seen in the Annals of the Bohemian Club (vol 7), 1987-1996. Also inlcuded in the book are images from the occult Cremation of Care ceremony:

“This image from Page 131 shows the ancient Caananite occult ritual, the “Cremation of Care Here you see a smug George W. Bush with his father, Bush Senior (taken in 1995) giving what they call a “lakeside chat” at the Grove. This page also shows Newt Gingrich, another member. The talks are given no less than a dozen yards from the stone idol where “mock” human sacrifices take place. This is the same idol you see featured above in the Cremation of Care ceremony photo.”

For much more information and documentation on this matter, click here.

Speaking of skeletons of dead babies and human sacrifices, there are no photos of George H.W. Bush with his young daughter “Robin Bush” before she mysteriously died at a young age, allegedly from “lukemia”. It is on record that George W. Bush did not go to his sisters funeral. What kind of family doesn’t let a boy go to his little sister’s funeral? What did they do with her body? One can only speculate as to how she really died or where her body went. [SeeFREEMASONS: THEIR GOD IS THE DEVIL.]

There is no photo of George H.W. Bush with 62-year-old Bertha O. Champagne, the live-in housekeeper who was ‘crushed to death’ at the Alexandria, Virginia home of Marvin P. Bush. According to Marvin’s statement to police, Bertha went out to her car to retrieve some photos of her and George W. Bush to show to Marvin, on September 29th 2003 . How does one get crushed to death by her own Oldsmobile between the front of her car and a wall anyway? “Champagne was pinned between the car and a small building next to the driveway” the police report stated, with pools of blood and broken glass at the scene. No one was ever arrested or charged in the “accident.” (Oh Bertha, Poor Bertha, what did you see?)

There is no photo of George H.W. Bush having dinner with his good friends the Hinckley family the night before their son John Hinckley shot and tried to murder Ronald Reagan. Rense.com reports ”NBC news anchor John Chancellor, eyebrows raised, informed the viewers of the nightly news that the man who tried to kill the president was acquainted with the son of the man who would have become president had the attack succeeded. As a matter of fact, Chancellor reported in a bewildered tone, Scott Hinckley and Neil Bush had been scheduled to have dinner together at the home of the (then) vice-president’s son (Neil) the very next night. The story of the Bush-Hinckley connection was reported on the AP and UPI newswires and in some newspapers, including the Houston Post, which apparently originated the story. It was also reported in Newsweek magazine.”

There is no photo of George H. W. Bush weeping and babbling about the JFK assasination in front of a large audiences at innapropriate times. Apparently a tormented guilty conscience shows through at times, even in the hardest cases. In December 2006, Bush senior sobbed and covered his face while speaking about his son Jeb at a large Florida gathering. The very next month, in January 2007, Daddy Bush Attacked JFK “Conspiracy Theorists”. Paul Joseph Watson of PrisonPlanet.com reported

“Former President triumphs Warren Commission at Ford’s funeral; Are the Bush’s breaking down?
During his speech at yesterday’s funeral service for Gerald Ford, former President George H.W. Bush bashed JFK “conspiracy theorists” and defended the Warren Commission report, another odd public outburst indicative of a crime family whose decades of misdeeds may finally be catching up with them. “After a deluded gunman assassinated President Kennedy, our nation turned to Gerald Ford and a select handful of others to make sense of that madness,” said Bush. “And the conspiracy theorists can say what they will, but the Warren Commission report will always have the final definitive say on this tragic matter. Why? Because Jerry Ford put his name on it and Jerry Ford’s word was always good.”

Despite the Bush family presenting the facade of being “respectable pro-life Christians” for the gullible Republican voting block, there are no photos of George H.W. Bush praising his friend eugencist Margaret Sanger or attacking the Roman Pontiff Pope Paul VI and demanding worldwide population control as he did publicly on the House floor while a Congressman in the 1960′s, which is outlined in the official Congressional record. Our 2008 entry George H.W. Bush: Evil Population Control Ghoul- “Rubbers Goes To Congress” outlines a brief summary, as well as a youtube video, covering little known details of George H. W. Bush’s vehement advocacy of global population control when he was a Congressman in the late 1960′s. Includes congressional testimony of Bush’s attacks on the Pope and his support of planned parenthood. Excerpts are from the excellent book “George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography” by Webster G. Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin Chapter X: Rubbers Goes to Congress [Available to read for free here. Excerpt at bottom of this page. See also Bush, Kissinger, Sanger and Ginsburg: All Eugenicists.]

NBC didn’t see fit to include photos of George H. W. Bush meeting with Osama bin Laden’s brother, Shafig bin Laden, in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Washington, on the morning of 9/11/01. In 2003, Paul Joseph Watson of PrisonPlanet.com reported “They were on Carlyle Group business just a few miles from where hijackers supposedly acting on behalf of Osama bin Laden would fly a plane into the Pentagon.”

Lastly, MSNBC presented no photo of George H. W. Bush being confronted by an educated and outraged patriotic American, who told him off in public in 2010. After being responsible for the murder and sterilization of countless millions of people worldwide, the degenerate coward occultist George H.W. Bush didn’t have the guts to say a single word in response to one man who had the courage to call him a “murderous, Zionist piece of $#@!!” to his face at a Houston Pizza Place. Instead, he used his government guards to try and bully the man, unsuccessfully. I am proud to say that this man, Greg, has been a friend of mine for many years and this dedicated truth-seeker’s act of speaking “truth to power” is not only admirable, but is a model for the rest of us:

[Watch video: How an old Bush can ruin a good lunch Jan 9, 2010.]
“January 6, 2010 – As if a restaurant’s shrine to a mass murderer and featured menu items in the name of the diabolical traitor to America weren’t enough, George Bush Sr. himself arrived when I was eating lunch with friends. Although I’m aware of many of his countless crimes against humanity, my mind went blank when it came to speaking out. It’s a wonderful thought for me to imagine these killers being scolded each and every time they appear in public.”

The Secret Service later called Greg’s friends and even came knocking on his door: Confronting a killer Part II: The Secret Service visit Jan 13, 2010

Q: What happens when you confront an ex-president and former head of the CIA?
A: The Secret Service visit you at home.
Thank you all for the overwhelming support! It means so very much to me.
It is an honor to know I was speaking for millions around the world when I shared my disgust with the so-called man.

On January 12, 2010 InfoWars reported: Man Who Confronted Bush Senior On Tape Visited by Secret Service:
“The video blogger who confronted international war criminal and top-drawer minion of the New World Order, George Bush Senior, was visited by the Secret Service after posting a video of the incident on YouTube. Earlier today he wrote an email to HoustonTruth.org:
Wanted to make you all aware that I was just visited by the Secret Service.
I stupidly opened the door, but then closed and locked it and told them I’d be right back with them. Then I put a tape in my camera and started to record. They told me they can’t talk on camera and left.
Thought you all should know in case I go missing, etc. No word as of this post if the Secret Service returned. The video in question follows. Please note the video contains strong language.” [See also O'Reilly demands 'deranged' Bush heckler be arrested

Hopefully, this collection will serve as a concise outline of the actual legacy of George H. W. Bush. And hopefully, for his own sake, this dreadful conspirator will repent for his own good before he meets his maker.

Martin Hill is a Catholic paleoconservative and civil rights advocate. His work has been featured on LewRockwell.com, WhatReallyHappened, Infowars, PrisonPlanet, Economic Policy Journal, FreedomsPhoenix, Veterans Today, The Wayne Madsen Report, Devvy.com, Rense, Antiwar.com, IamtheWitness.com, National Motorists Association, RomanCatholicReport.com, WorldNetDaily, ZionCrimeFactory.com, The Orange County Register, KNBC4 Los Angeles, Los Angeles Catholic Lay Mission Newspaper, KFI 640, The Press Enterprise, BlackBoxVoting, and many others. Archives can be found at LibertyFight.com

****

Excerpts from: "George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography"

by Webster G. Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin
Chapter X: Rubbers Goes to Congress
[Available to read for free here: http://www.tarpley.net/bush10.htm]

“Bush belonged to a small group of congressmen who successfully conspired to force a profound shift in the official U.S. attitude and policy toward population expansion. Embracing the “limits to growth” ideology with a vengeance, Bush and his coterie, which included such ultraliberal Democrats as then- Senator Walter Mondale (Minn.) and Rep. James Scheuer (N.Y.), labored to enact legislation which institutionalized population control as U.S. domestic and foreign policy.

Bush began his Malthusian activism in the House in 1968, which was the year in which Pope Paul VI issued his enyclical “Humanae Vitae,” which contained a prophetic warning of the danger of coercion by governments for the purpose of population control. The Pope wrote: “Let it be considered also that a dangerous weapon would be placed in the hands of those public authorities who place no heed of moral exigencies…. Who will stop rulers from favoring, from even imposing upon their people, the method of contraception which they judged to be most efficacious?” For poorer countries with a high population rate, the encyclical identified the only rational and humane policy: “No solution to these difficulties is acceptable which does violence to man’s essential dignity….The only possible solution … is one which envisages the social and economic progress both of individuals and of the whole of human society….”

This was a direct challenge to the cultural paradigm transformation which Bush and other exponents of the oligarchical world outlook were promoting. Not for the first time nor for the last time, Bush issued a direct attack on the Holy See. Just days after Humanae Vitae was issued, Bush declared: “I have decided to give my vigorous support for population control in both the United States and the world.” He also lashed out at the Pope. “For those of us who who feel so strongly on this issue, the recent enyclical was most discouraging.”

During his four years in Congress, Bush not only introduced key pieces of legislation to enforce population control both at home and abroad. He also continuously introduced into the congressional debate reams of propaganda about the threat of population growth and the inferiority of blacks, and he set up a special Republican task force which functioned as a forum for the most rabid Malthusian ideologues.

“Bush was really out front on the population issue,” a population- control activist recently said of this period of 1967-71. “He was saying things that even we were reluctant to talk about publicly.”

Bush’s open public advocacy of government measures tending towards zero population growth was a radical departure from the policies built into the federal bureaucracy up until that time. The climate of opinion just a few years earlier, in December 1959, is illustrated by the comments of President Eisenhower, who had said, “birth control is not our business. I cannot imagine anything more emphatically a subject that is not a proper political or governmental activity … or responsibility.”

As a congressman, Bush played an absolutely pivotal role in this shift. Shortly after arriving in Washington, he teamed up with fellow Republican Herman Schneebeli to offer a series of amendments to the Social Security Act to place priority emphasis on what was euphemistically called “family planning services.” The avowed goal was to reduce the number of children born to women on welfare.

Wahhabi/Salafi Preacher Calls for Jihad Against Government On Tunisian TV

Nasr al-Din al-Alawi, a Salafi cleric and imam, was shown in a TV interview brandishing a white cloth, used for a coffin, as a sign that he is willing to sacrifice his life.

Salafi cleric’s ‘coffin campaign’ goes live on Tunisian TV

SyndiGate.info

Tunisian viewers were taken shocked when a Salafi cleric called upon Muslim youths to carry out jihadist acts against the government in a live TV show this week.

Tunisian analysts warned of the consequences of a growing militant discourse that has prevailed after the revolution.

Nasr al-Din al-Alawi, a Salafi cleric and imam, was shown in a TV interview (in the presence of Interior Minister Ali Larayed) brandishing a white cloth, used to represent a coffin, as a sign that he is willing to sacrifice his life.

He then called upon Salafi youths in Tunisia to do the same and to declare jihad against the ruling al-Nahda party and the minister, who is also a member of the party.

Tunisian experts found the incident alarming and launched an initiative in the weekly Assabah newspaper, which called upon al-Nahda to choose between what they termed “the coffin campaign” and the promotion of freedom and progress.

They lashed out at the ruling party for its attempts to woo the ultra-conservative Islamists and warned of the grave consequences of overlooking actions that incite violence like Alawi’s.

Political analyst Salah al-Din al-Jurshi argued that all al-Nahda’s attempts at winning the Salafis to their side have failed.

“Salafis view al-Nahda as their enemy now and the coffin incident proves that they might think of escalation against the party and the troika government and which for them have lost their legitimacy,” he wrote.

Jurshi added that despite initiatives by several more moderate Salafi clerics to diffuse the tension between Salafis and the government, clashes are still likely to happen in the coming stage.

“This is because the Salafi discourse has not really changed,” he said.

Regarding the application of a law the entitles security forces to shoot at Salafi in case of violations, Jurshi said that while the law itself seems capable of restoring stability, violence has proven an inadequate way of solving such problems even if it is perpetrated by a legitimate government.

“This way of handling things proved a great failure when [former Tunisian president Zine El Abidine] Ben Ali tried it with al-Nahda.”

Professor of history and expert on Islamic studies Aliya al-Alani found confrontations between Salafis and the government unlikely to take place in the near future.

“After the coffin incident, many Salafis, as well as members of al-Nahda, hurried to mediate between Salafi zealots and the government because they think any confrontation will serve the interests of the seculars.”

Alani agrees with Jurshi as far as al-Nahda’s inability to contain the Salafi threat is concerned.

“If al-Nahda was capable of convincing the Salafis to tone down their rhetoric and renounce violence, why didn’t it do that several months ago when several politicians and intellectuals were subjected to attacks by Salafis?”

However, Alani argued that those attacks proved that Salafis are not as dangerous as they might appear to be because their numbers are much less than what is reported in the media.

“They are only a few hundreds, nothing more.”

Alani dismissed fears that al-Nahda would turn into a tyrannical entity and eventually create a regime similar to that of Ben Ali because al-Nahda’s allies are gradually diminishing and that is why it needs to deal wisely with the situation.

“The question is: has al-Nahda finally realized that its political future is not with the coffins bearers, but with the proponents of freedom and progress who promote the principles of equality and citizenship?” asked Alani.

© 2012 MBC Group

Elitists Use Personal Positions of Power To Bring About the “Culling” of the Human Herd

Saving Humanity

Dave Hodges

The Common Sense Show

Do you remember when your mother asked you if you would jump off a cliff if everyone else was doing it? It turns out that all of us would have been wise to heed the advice from our mothers as the globalists aren’t just encouraging us to jump off a cliff, they are, in fact, pushing us off of the proverbial cliff in a deliberate attempt to fulfill the their mandate which is to eliminate a substantial portion of humanity. Meanwhile, the globalists will be safely tucked away in some underground structure free from the harm that they are perpetrating upon humanity. Sadly, many of our friends and family members are willingly going to their demise without so much as a whimper.

Heretofore, the topic of intentional depopulation was the perceived product of paranoid delusional conspiracy theorists who had too much time on their hands. The most frequent refrain from the unaware is that “they” would never do that. However, the globalists have left an unmistakable paper trail in which their true agenda is exposed.

I have collected a sample of quotes from the global elite, both past and present. And even people who cannot find the courage to abandon their normalcy bias, will have a difficult time denying the disturbing quotes which follow. .

Officials in the United Nations Want You Dead

Surely, the peace loving United Nations, complete with its expressed desire to save the world from any and all evil would stand in line to thwart any expressed threat to inhabitants of this planet, right?  Well, not exactly. The United Nations is permeated with individuals who are Satanically inspired and have repeatedly, on many fronts, have expressed their intent to reduce the world’s population by dramatic means, if necessary. Please consider the following quotes:

“No one will enter the New World Order unless he or she will make a pledge to worship Lucifer. No one will enter the New Age unless he will take a Luciferian Initiation.”
David Spangler, Director of Planetary Initiative, United Nations

The present vast overpopulation, now far beyond the world carrying capacity, cannot be answered by future reductions in the birth rate due to contraception, sterilization and abortion, but must be met in the present by the reduction of numbers presently existing. This must be done by whatever means necessary.”

Initiative for the United Nations ECO-92 EARTH CHARTER

 

“One America burdens the earth much more than twenty Bangladeshes. This is a terrible thing to say in order to stabilize world population, we must eliminate 350,000 people per day. It is a horrible thing to say, but it’s just as bad not to say it.         

 Jacques Cousteau, UNESCO Courier

“A reasonable estimate for an industrialized world society at the present North American material standard of living would be 1 billion. At the more frugal European standard of living, 2 to 3 billion would be possible”.

United Nations, Global Biodiversity Assessment

                     “A total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline would  be ideal”                                                                                      

Ted Turner, founder of CNN and major United Nations contributor

Is anyone else bothered by the fact that this pack of Eugenicists are overseeing our elections?  Perhaps the officials at the United Nations stand alone among elite leaders on the planet.

 

 What About Our Educated Elite?

Although it is painfully obvious that the United Nations elite have a high level of contempt for the average person, surely those people responsible for educating our children will teach the time honored virtues of the United States Constitution. Surely, they will teach their students to develop a healthy respect for American sovereignty so that the genocidal lunatics running the United Nations are unable to put their genocidal schemes into motion. Upon further review, this is not the case as I bring to you the words of those who educate and mold the minds of our young people.

War and famine would not do. Instead, disease offered the most efficient and fastest way to kill the billions that must soon die if the population crisis is to be solved. AIDS is not an efficient killer because it is too slow. My favorite candidate for eliminating 90 percent of the world’s population is airborne Ebola (Ebola Reston), because it is both highly lethal and it kills in days, instead of years. “We’ve got airborne diseases with 90 percent mortality in humans. Killing humans. Think about that. “You know, the bird flu’s good, too. For everyone who survives, he will have to bury nine”

Dr. Eric Pianka University of Texas speaking on the topic of reducing the world’s population to an audience on population control.

“A cancer is an uncontrolled multiplication of cells, the population explosion is an uncontrolled multiplication of people. We must shift our efforts from the treatment of the symptoms to the cutting out of the cancer. The operation will demand many apparently brutal and heartless decisions”.                                                                            

  Stanford Professor Paul Ehrlich, The Population Bomb

“We have to take away from humans in the long run their reproductive autonomy as the only way to guarantee the advancement of mankind.”

Francis Crick, The discoverer of the double-helix structure of DNA

It strongly appears that the Eugenicists patrolling corridors of educational institutions possess the same disdain for mankind as do the lunatic officials from the United Nations.

 

What About the Environmental Elites?

It is apparent that humanity cannot look to the sociopathic leaders of the United Nations and America’s top academic leaders for salvation.  But certainly the eco-friendly environmentalists, with their penchant for saving the whales and the spotted owl will ride to the rescue of mankind.  Regrettably, this is also not the case. It seems that the humanitarian spirit of the environmentalists does not apply to any species which possess a collapsible thumb, the power of speech and has a well-developed cerebral cortex. Again, the words of the elite exposes their depopulation agenda.

“If I were reincarnated I would wish to be returned to earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels.”

 Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, Leader of the World Wildlife Fund

“Malthus has been vindicated; reality is finally catching up with Malthus. The Third World is overpopulated, it’s an economic mess, and there’s no way they could get out of it with this fast-growing population. Our philosophy is: back to the village.”                  

 Dr. Arne Schiotz, World Wildlife Fund Director of Conservation

 

What About Our Government Leaders?

Historically, many Americans believe that they can look to the government to protect them from the evils of the world.  It is clear that our blind trust in our public officials misplaced. Our leaders are not our friends, and have not been for a very long time as evidenced by the following quotes:

“Society has no business to permit degenerates to reproduce their kind”
Theodore Roosevelt

“There is a single theme behind all our work–we must reduce population levels. Either governments do it our way, through nice clean methods, or they will get the kinds of mess that we have in El Salvador, or in Iran or in Beirut. Population is a political problem. Once population is out of control, it requires authoritarian government, even fascism, to reduce it….” “Our program in El Salvador didn’t work. The infrastructure was not there to support it. There were just too goddamned many people…. To really reduce population, quickly, you have to pull all the males into the fighting and you have to kill significant numbers of fertile age females….” The quickest way to reduce population is through famine, like in Africa, or through disease like the Black Death….
Thomas Ferguson, State Department Office of Population Affairs

“Depopulation should be the highest priority of foreign policy towards the third world, because the US economy will require large and increasing amounts of minerals from abroad, especially from less developed countries”.
Dr. Henry Kissinger

“The world’s population needs to be reduced by 50%,” and “The elderly are useless eaters”
Dr. Henry Kissinger

“The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes.”
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes

“Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of.”
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

“The Planetary Regime might be given responsibility for determining the optimum population for the world and for each region and for arbitrating various countries’ shares within their regional limits. Control of population size might remain the responsibility of each government, but the Regime would have some power to enforce the agreed limits.”
Obama’s science czar John P. Holdren: From Ecoscience

One percent of the population is sociopathic. Here are two clear markers for Sociopaths, discoverable in their behavior patterns: 1) Sociopaths have no conscience. Hence, 2) Sociopaths cannot feel guilt nor remorse, like  ordinary people can.

These are evil people, very evil people. Superficially charming, they are selfish, greedy, unemphathetic, manipulative, and prone to violence and abuse. They steal, cheat, vandalize others property, swindle, and they are pathological liars. They are unconcerned with the feelings of other humans, who are mere objects to be used, and have little or no conscience

A recent book, authored by Martha Stout, in which the material came from released government documents CEO’s are three times more likely to be a sociopath than the general population. Politicians are four times more likely to be sociopathic than you and I.  These are the people who seek power and once they obtain that power, the see absolute power, much to detriment of the soon-to-be extinct members of human race.

 

What Is Humanity To Do?

If humanity is to preserve itself in its present form, it will be necessary to educate the masses as to the planned perils which lie ahead. The pro-human preservation movement needs bodies, billions and billions of bodies. Yet, the very victims of the coming planned genocide are dumbed down by the schools and propagandized into a false sense of security by the mainstream media which is owned by six global elite corporations who also want you gone.

For humanity to survive, we need to collectively rise from our knees and seize control of the planet’s institutions and permanently banish these dangerous sociopaths from their self-anointed positions of planetary leadership. The first step in gathering the numbers of people which we will need to accomplish this goal, is to educate the human race in as great as numbers as possible. My suggestion would be to forward these quotes to everyone you know and then follow up with one question. Do you think that your status in life is so significant that you and your family will be spared the coming holocaust?  If not, then you better roll up your sleeves and convince as many people as possible that we are in a great deal of danger.

Ethnic Russian Woman Suspected as Suicide Bomber

The Moscow Times

Doesn’t look like a suicide bomber, does she?

An ethnic Russian woman, who was both wife and widow of Islamist militants, was named on Wednesday as the suicide bomber who killed a moderate Muslim cleric in Dagestan just as President Vladimir Putin was pleading for national unity.

Police said Aminat Kurbanova, a resident of Makhachkala, had posed as a pilgrim to the home of Said Atsayev, 74, in Chirkei and detonated an explosive belt packed with nails and ball bearings, killing Atsayev, herself and six others, including an 11-year-old boy visiting with his parents.

A security official said the woman, aged 29 or 30, was born with the ethnic Russian surname Saprykina but converted to Islam and was married to an Islamist militant. Two previous husbands, also militants, had been killed, the official added.

The bombing came as Putin made a rousing call for religious and ethnic concord to counter extremism.

“We will not allow anyone to tear our country apart by exploiting ethnic and religious differences,” Putin said in Tatarstan, where the senior officially backed Muslim cleric was wounded last month and one of his former deputies killed.

Atsayev’s killing follows a string of attacks on moderate Muslim leaders in the Caucasus who have publicly denounced the spread of radical Islamic groups known as Salafis, whose followers advocate an independent state, or emirate, that would include Caucasus and parts of southern Russia that contain a significant Muslim population.

Atsayev, the powerful leader of a Sufi Muslim brotherhood, had recently initiated peace talks between Sufis and Salafis.

The mystical Muslim orders of Sufis have for centuries been popular in Dagestan and neighboring provinces, and their leaders and adherents survived decades of Communist persecution. The Sufi brotherhoods are fiercely opposed to the radical and militant Salafis that have mushroomed across the region. The Sufis often pray over the tombs of revered saints, and Salafi puritans condemn worshipping over graves as idolatry.

Tens of thousands of people attended Atsayev’s funeral Tuesday, and thousands more flocked to his grave Wednesday to pray as Dagestan’s secular authorities declared a day of mourning.

The killing of the white-bearded cleric, who appeared in public wearing a traditional hat made of astrakhan lamb fur, could lead to more violence in Dagestan and the Caucasus, analysts said.

“These are attempts to abort peacekeeping efforts in the region and to escalate the situation in southern Russia,” Ruslan Gereyev of the Center of Islamic Studies in Makhachkala, told the Kavkazsky Uzel online publication.

If the killing goes unpunished, the authority of Atsayev’s influential followers will be questioned, said Alexei Malashenko of the Carnegie Moscow Center. “If the main figure is killed and his followers are silent, this will lead to a major reappraisal of values” in Dagestan, he said.

(Reuters, AP)

The Moscow Times

Aleppo–Conflicting stories and the truth

Again the western media is manipulating the facts, sifting through footage taken in recent weeks, showing out-of-date clips of tanks being commandeered by terrorists, then after their murderous filth was chased out of Damascus, they paint a rosy story of Aleppo. The truth so obviously hurts, hence the lies. Here is the full truth and nothing but.

The Free Syrian Terrorist Force is, sorry to spoil the fun, certainly not composed by Syrians. Around 75 per cent of them are foreign mercenaries, murderers, “ex-SAS”, “ex-French special forces”, Libyan rapists, murderers and torturers, and so on, complete with the hierarchy composed of Iraqis and Turks and the token Syrian for the cameras.

Secondly, and sorry to spoil the fun again, things are not going very well for this western-backed scourge and their western masters, furiously scratching their heads as to what to do next. After Libya, with nobody believing a word London, Washington or Paris says any more, and after the foreign policy disaster in Iraq, invading outside the UNSC, what can they do, except keep on sending foreign mercenaries and murderers to their deaths inside Syria?

For those who wish to make a buck by fighting for this filth murdering civilians and raping girls, it should also be pointed out that they are generally not paid until after the first ten days, after which they are generally dead. Someone point that out to them, will you? Thanks.

And sorry to spoil the fun again, but Aleppo has not fallen to the terrorists. In fact, quite the contrary – it is surrounded on all sides, it is totally cut off and the enclave where the terrorists were concentrated, in Salah al-Deen has been sterilised. Few escaped. Allahu Akhbar! A few rats shaved their faces, a handful trickled through; the families of the others can thank the FUKUS Axis and the Gulf Cooperation Council for the loss of their young men. They were literally liquidated.

But we will not hear from or about these, because neither are most of them Syrians nor do they fight with documents, nor will their families see any of the money they were promised.

In Aleppo, there are groups of desperate terrorists left in pockets, low on ammunition, low on food and already doing what they do so well, namely murdering local civilians, stealing their food, looting their homes and raping their girls. And boys. Sodomy after all goes hand-in-hand with the FUKUS Axis and their minions. Remember Abu Ghraib?

Pravda.Ru sources in Aleppo claim this filth is totally alienated amongst the population – as in other areas they are hated (except a handful of villages where the western media concentrates) and there are reports that the civilian boroughs are being pillaged for food and valuables for them to carry back to their villages – and countries, if they get out. The sources have given a very clear picture as to what is going on: hundreds of these murderers, torturers and rapists were being exterminated by the hour by the brave Syrian Armed Forces.

As the terrorist pigs saw they were going to lose the areas they held, what did they do? They tried to storm a 5,500-year-old citadel and destroy it. How low does it get, when you try to destroy historical heritage in revenge? Fortunately, the Syrian Armed Forces were stationed around the citadel and saved it, eliminating the filth as it tried to destroy the main gate. The situation at present is that of the 12,000 rats trapped in Aleppo, perhaps 20% of that force has been depleted, leaving some 9,000 to 10,000 without supplies and no way of getting them.

Meanwhile the terrorist incursions from the Jordanian and Lebanese borders have diminished as security is tightened, the most porous frontier now being Turkey, which harbours the FUKUS darlings in a clear act of aggression against Damascus. The question is posed as to when Syria’s patience snaps and Ankara is held accountable for what it is doing.

The Syrian Government has to be wary of the terrorists using a ploy they and their FUKUS masters have been thinking about for a long time now, namely using their own stashes of chemical weapons to launch a false flag attack, blame the Syrian Government and then whitewash public opinion for an invasion.

So now we see the true mettle of the FUKUS Axis and their terrorists and we see the graveyard of their policies and diplomacy. Rather than Iran being the country to look over its shoulder, Turkey looks set in certain quarters to get the karma it deserves.

You mess in the internal affairs of a sovereign state, you try to destroy heritage as part of policy and by God it comes flying back to you square in the face.

Time for a new age of world diplomacy without the lobbies and corporatist cliques which dictate the policies of Washington and its poodles while pretending to be democratic and accountable. How accountable is an organism that is not elected? Let the balance of power shift eastwards, to Russia, China and India, along with other States such as Brazil which uphold international law and do not insult it by saying one thing and doing another.

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey

Pravda.Ru

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey

US Officials See No Conflict of Interests In Arming “Al-CIA-da” with Surface-to-Air Missiles To Get Assad

[In order to become a US Govt. official you have to possess absolutely no sense of morality whatsoever.  The latest example of government immorality comes via the phenomenon we affectionately refer to as "al-Qaeda."  Congress can pass resolutions which resemble declarations of war against "al-Qaeda"-inspired terrorism, giving us the completely scandalous "Global War On Terrorism" (GWOT), while simultaneously supporting known branches of all-Qaeda and arming them with the most feared of all terrorist weapons, the man-portable, hand-held, SAM (surface-to-air-missile).  We have to do everything conceivable to keep terrorists in Libya from getting their hands on several thousand of these nasty man-killers, except for the terrorists who plan to use them in support of NATO's war on Bashar Assad.  We start a global war against terrorism, yet we openly employ known terrorists to do our dirty work in Syria (unlike places like Pakistan, where we keep our hiring of Hakeemullah Mehsud's gang on the "Q.T.".  This is the kind of shit that will finish-off this country, before our leaders ever really cobble together their new world order.  

We are fucked...and deservedly so.]  

Saudi and Turkey get serious about supporting Syrian rebels

via SyndiGate.info

Members of the Free Syrian Army

Saudi Arabia is set to pay the salaries of the rebel Free Syrian Army to encourage mass defections from President Bashar al-Assad’s forces, Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported on Saturday.

The payments would be made in either U.S. dollars or euros — which would mean a rise in salaries as the Syrian pound has fallen sharply in value since the revolt started 16 months ago, the broadsheet said.

The idea was first proposed to Saudi Arabia by Arab officials in May, the Guardian reported, citing sources in three Arab states and adding that the plan has also been discussed with U.S. officials.

However a spokesman for the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs offered no comment to Al Arabiya on such claims, suggesting the topic is likely to be addressed at the joint GCC-EU council and ministerial meeting set to take place in Luxembourg on Monday.

The Guardian also claims that Turkey has allowed the establishment of a command center in Istanbul co-coordinating the supply of weapons to the rebel fighters in Syria, staffed by more than 20 mainly Syrian nationals.

The report comes amid a crisis between Turkey and Syria afterDamascus confirmed that it shot down a Turkish fighter jet that it said had violated Syrian airspace.

The Guardian said Turkey sees weapon supply lines as crucial to the defense of its border with its former close ally Syria, with Syrian forces edging closer in an attempt to stop guns crossing the border into the hands of rebel fighters.

The Guardian says its reporters witnessed weapons being transferred across border from Turkey into Syria in early June.

According to the report, Turkey has given the green-light to establish a command center in Istanbul, to coordinate with opposition leaders within Syria. It is alleged that 22 people have been recruited to run the center, most of them Syrian nationals.

On Friday, Ankara denied allegations in a New York Times report, citing U.S. officials and Arab intelligence sources, that Turkey was among a number of countries shipping weapons to Syrian rebels over the border.

The New York Times also reported that the CIA was on location in south Turkey assisting allies in the distribution of weapons amongst opposition fighters.

“Turkey does not ship weapons to any neighboring country, including Syria,” foreign ministry spokesman Selcuk Unal said.

The neighbors’ relations are already strained over outspoken condemnation by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Syria’s bloody crackdown on protests against Assad’s government.

Turkey is hosting more than 30,000 Syrian refugees living in camps near the border, according to foreign ministry figures, as well as army defectors including 12 generals.

Increasing concern

  I think it’s fair to say that we have a concern about the MANPADS coming out of Libya  

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta

Meanwhile as evidence mounts of Islamic militant forces among the Syrian opposition, senior U.S. and European officials are increasingly alarmed by the prospect of sophisticated weapons falling into the hands of rebel groups that may be dangerous to Western interests, including al-Qaeda.

In an interview with Reuters, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta articulated U.S. worries that shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, also known as MANPADS, could find their way onto the Syrian battlefield.

Intelligence experts believe that hundreds, if not thousands, of such weapons were looted from arsenals accumulated by late Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, and are floating on the Middle East black market.

“I think it’s fair to say that we have a concern about the MANPADS coming out of Libya,” Panetta said in the Thursday interview. “We’ve had an ongoing view that it was important to try to determine where these MANPADS were going, not only the concern that some of them might wind up in Syria but elsewhere as well,” he said.

Panetta added that he had seen no direct intelligence yet that such missiles had made their way to Syria. He did not specifically cite the rebels as potential recipients.

But other U.S. and allied officials voiced that concern, while saying they had no evidence that Syrian rebels had yet acquired MANPADS.

Qaeda joining rebels

  It stands to reason that if any Middle Eastern nation is even considering giving arms to the Syrian opposition, it would take a measured approach and think twice about providing arms that could have unintended consequences  

U.S. official

The urgency of Western concerns stems as much from the recipients of the weapons as the weapons themselves. High-level sources at multiple national intelligence services report increasing evidence that Islamic militants, including Qaeda and its affiliates and other hard-line Sunni groups, had joined forces with opponents of the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer who has advised President Barack Obama on counter-terrorism policy, said that Qaeda and other militants were “deeply engaged” with anti-Assad forces. He cited public pronouncements by senior Qaeda figures, including the group’s leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, that urged Sunni rebels in Syria to kill members of Assad’s Alawite Muslim minority.

A western government source said that al-Nusrah, a “spinoff” from Qaeda’s Iraq-based affiliate, was responsible for at least some atrocities that have occurred in Syria. The source said the group publicly confirmed its role in killings.

Worries that sophisticated weapons could make their way to the wrong kind of Syrian rebels are one reason Washington remains wary of deeper U.S. involvement in the fighting.

“It stands to reason that if any Middle Eastern nation is even considering giving arms to the Syrian opposition, it would take a measured approach and think twice about providing arms that could have unintended consequences,” a U.S. official said.

Nonetheless, U.S. and allied officials say their Saudi and Qatari counterparts have discussed how MANPADS could be used by Assad opponents to bring down Russian-made helicopters the Syrian army is using to redeploy its troops rapidly between trouble spots.

But such missiles also could be used against other targets, including civilian airliners, one reason for the U.S. and allied concern.

After the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, the CIA, with Saudi backing, provided sophisticated shoulder-fired Stinger missiles to Islamic militants seeking to oust Soviet troops.

The missiles played a significant role in the Soviets’ ultimate defeat in Afghanistan. But they also became a major headache for U.S. and western counter-terrorism agencies when anti-Soviet militants morphed into anti-Western militant factions including Qaeda.

U.S. providing non-lethal support

Some prominent U.S. Republicans are urging a big step-up in U.S. aid for Assad’s opponents, including arms deliveries and even possible U.S. military involvement.

At a conference on Thursday hosted by the website Bloomberg Government, U.S. Senator John McCain suggested that the Obama administration’s cautious policy regarding the Syrian rebels was “shameful” and urged a major escalation in U.S. involvement.

“So what do we do? First of all, we stand up for them. Second of all, we get them weapons. Third of all, we establish a sanctuary with our allies – no boots on the ground, no boots on the ground – and use our and our allied air power to protect that zone and we help these people in a fair fight,” McCain said.

At the same conference, however, Representative Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, warned: “We are just really not in a good position today to fully identify all of the groups, all of the factions, who’s winning that leadership fight,” he said.

The United States is understood to be supplying non-lethal support to Assad’s opponents, such as financing and communications gear, possibly including monitoring equipment. The Times said that the Obama administration has held back on providing rebels with intelligence information, such as satellite photographs, on the activities of Assad’s forces.

Riedel warned that Qatar authorities might not be too choosy about which Syrian rebels they are willing to supply with arms, though they would try to avoid giving them directly to Qaeda.

“I don’t think that Qatar and the Saudis are as concerned as we are about surface-to-air missiles,” Riedel added.

What do you think about Saudi paying the Syrian rebels? Tell us your thoughts below. 

© 2012 MBC Group

India Has A Primative Infrastructure System, Yet It Has Advanced nuclear Research Labs

 The sewer divers of Mumbai

India has basically no infrastructure system, yet it has nuclear power, a nuclear arsenal and its own aircraft carrier.  

 the Vikramaditya

If the individuals within the Indian govt. had any concern at all for their countrymen, or their fellow man, then the common needs of the  people would outweigh nuclear expansion, as well as all plans to partner with the Americans in an expansion into Central Asia.  

No country that has an economy of a trillions of dollars per year would tolerate the idea that half of the country, or more, has to use the local railroad tracks as toilets    

Saudi Harassment of Ethiopian Christian Workers for “illicit mingling of genders.”

Saudis Contradictory on Why Ethiopian Christians Were Arrested

By Joseph DeCaro, Worthy News Correspondent

RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA (Worthy News)– Saudi officials have been making conflicting statements as to why 35 Ethiopian Christians were arrested at a prayer service in a private home in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, last December.

In May, a source close to the Saudi ambassador indicated the Christians were arrested as part of an investigation into a human smuggling ring, but this contradicted the original accusation accusing the Christians of an “illicit mingling of genders.”

Shortly thereafter, Sarah Nezamuddin, a representative from the Saudi Embassy, said the Christians had all been arrested for having issues with their work permits, but after International Christian Concern provided a list of the 35 prisoners with legal work permit numbers, Nezamuddin then said that the Christians were actually involved in drug and human trafficking.

Finally, on May 21st, in a meeting with Congressional staff members, representatives from the Saudi government said the 35 Christians had been arrested for visa issues and were also involved in some form of smuggling ring.

“Why haven’t they brought us to court?” one Ethiopian prisoner told ICC. “Why don’t they show us some evidence and bring charges against us? The Saudis are trying to punish us for being Christians by keeping us in prison.”

“I continue to be baffled by the inability of the Saudi government to explain exactly why 35 Christians attending a prayer service at a private home were suddenly arrested almost six months ago,” said Ryan Morgan, ICC’s Advocacy Officer. “The story keeps changing, and it is very troubling to think that a key U.S. ally in the Middle East may be lying to U.S. government officials about why they are arresting religious minorities. I strongly encourage interested individuals to call the Saudi Embassy and express their concern at this alarming turn of events.”

Rockefellers and Rothschilds Emerge from Behind the Curtain, To Openly Feed On the Carcass

Rockefellers and Rothschilds unite

• From: NewsCore

Old money: British financier Lord Jacob Rothschild has bought a 37 per cent stake the Rockefellers’ investment trust. Above, New York City’s famous Rockefeller Centre. Picture: Frank Franklin

THE Rothschilds and the Rockefellers, two of the world’s greatest family dynasties, are pooling their vast resources.

The Financial Times (FT) reported yesterday that Lord Jacob Rothschild’s listed investment trust, RIT Capital Partners, agreed to take a 37 per cent stake in Rockefeller Financial Services for an undisclosed amount.

The financial marriage of convenience is designed to give Rothschild a valuable foothold in the US, according to the newspaper.

The deal, which brings together David Rockefeller, 96, with Lord Rothschild, 76, marks the culmination of a near five decade relationship between the two scions, the FT said.

The Rockefeller group, bearing a name that gave life to a class of American “blue bloods,” dates back to 1882 when oil magnate John D. Rockefeller launched one of the world’s first family investment offices.

The company has evolved into a well-regarded investment firm for other wealthy families and institutions with $US34 billion ($35 billion) assets under management, according to the FT.

In comparison, RIT has about 1.9 billion pounds ($3 billion) in net assets which are reportedly spread across various global investment classes.

The transatlantic tie-up will “focus on setting up investment funds, eyeing joint acquisitions of wealth and asset managers and granting each other non-executive directorships,” the FT said.

The Rockefeller group is majority-owned by the family, while Lord Rothschild holds a minority stake in RIT Capital Partners

One Helicopter Kills 8 Family Members In Afghan Airstrike

[This is the death toll from a single US/NATO airstrike from a single helicopter.   How many Afghan children total have we killed?   Please allow me to answer my own question--As of the end of 2011, the Pentagon accepts responsibility for at least 3,120 civilian deaths  in Afghanistan since the beginning of the terror war.   Kind of puts that Syrian civilian casualty report into perspective, doesn't it?  How could a helicopter makes such a mistake, when they can hover over a target long enough to learn whether they are destroying the right house, or not?]

8 family members killed in airstrike

by Daud Tapan

GARDEZ (PAN): Eight members of a family, including children and women, were killed in an airstrike in the southeastern province of Pakita, an official said on Sunday.
The incident took place on Saturday evening when the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) helicopter bombed a house in the mountainous area of the Garda Serai district, the governor’s spokesman said.
Rohullah Samoon told Pajhwok Afghan News that the children and women were among the eight innocent people killed in the airstrike.
Three women, four children and a man were killed in the airstrike that hit a house in the Pakhri village, a tribal elder of the district, said on condition of anonymity.
A Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said that civilians were killed in the air attack.
In a statement, ISAF said they were pursuing a group of insurgents in the area  when the incident happened and they have launched a probe to check whether civilians were killed.

TOTAL, 2007-2011

8,558

3,120

1,115

12,793

66.90

The Imperial Mind

American rage at Pakistan over the punishment of a CIA-cooperating Pakistani doctor is quite revealing

BY GLENN GREENWALD

Americans of all types — Democrats and Republicans, even some Good Progressives — are just livid that a Pakistani tribal court (reportedly in consultation with Pakistani officials) has imposed a 33-year prison sentence on Shakil Afridi, the Pakistani physician who secretly worked with the CIA to find Osama bin Laden on Pakistani soil. Their fury tracks the standard American media narrative: by punishing Dr. Afridi for the “crime” of helping the U.S. find bin Laden, Pakistan has revealed that it sympathizes with Al Qaeda and is hostile to the U.S. (NPR headline: “33 Years In Prison For Pakistani Doctor Who Aided Hunt For Bin Laden”; NYT headline: “Prison Term for Helping C.I.A. Find Bin Laden”). Except that’s a woefully incomplete narrative: incomplete to the point of being quite misleading.

What Dr. Afridi actually did was concoct a pretextual vaccination program, whereby Pakistani children would be injected with a single Hepatitis B vaccine, with the hope of gaining access to the Abbottabad house where the CIA believed bin Laden was located. The plan was that, under the ruse of vaccinating the children in that province, he would obtain DNA samples that could confirm the presence in the suspected house of the bin Laden family. But the vaccine program he was administering was fake: as Wired‘s public health reporter Maryn McKenna detailed, “since only one of three doses was delivered, the vaccination was effectively useless.” An on-the-ground Guardian investigation documented that ”while the vaccine doses themselves were genuine, the medical professionals involved were not following procedures. In an area called Nawa Sher, they did not return a month after the first dose to provide the required second batch. Instead, according to local officials and residents, the team moved on.”

That means that numerous Pakistani children who thought they were being vaccinated against Hepatitis B were in fact left exposed to the virus. Worse, international health workers have long faced serious problems in many parts of the world — including remote Muslim areas — in convincing people that the vaccines they want to give to their children are genuine rather than Western plots to harm them. These suspicions have prevented the eradication of polio and the containment of other preventable diseases in many areas, including in parts of Pakistan. This faux CIA vaccination program will, for obvious and entirely foreseeable reasons, significantly exacerbate that problem.

As McKenna wrote this week, this fake CIA vaccination program was “a cynical attempt to hijack the credibility that public health workers have built up over decades with local populations” and thus “endangered the status of the fraught polio-eradication campaign, which over the past decade has been challenged in majority-Muslim areas in Africa and South Asia over beliefs that polio vaccination is actually a covert campaign to harm Muslim children.” She further notes that while this suspicion “seems fantastic” to oh-so-sophisticated Western ears — what kind of primitive people would harbor suspicions about Western vaccine programs? – there are actually “perfectly good reasons to distrust vaccination campaigns” from the West (in 1996, for instance, 11 children died in Nigeria when Pfizer, ostensibly to combat a meningitis outbreak, conducted drug trials — experiments — on Nigerian children that did not comport with binding safety standards in the U.S.).

When this fake CIA vaccination program was revealed last year, Doctors Without Borders harshly denounced the CIA and Dr. Afridi for their “grave manipulation of the medical act” that will cause “vulnerable communities – anywhere – needing access to essential health services [to] understandably question the true motivation of medical workers and humanitarian aid.” The group’s President pointed out the obvious: “The potential consequence is that even basic healthcare, including vaccination, does not reach those who need it most.” That is now clearly happening, as the CIA program “is casting its shadow over campaigns to vaccinate Pakistanis against polio.” Gulrez Khan, a Peshawar-based anti-polio worker, recently said that tribesman in the area now consider public health workers to be CIA agents and are more reluctant than ever to accept vaccines and other treatments for their children.

For the moment, leave to the side the question of whether knowingly administering ineffective vaccines to Pakistani children is a justified ruse to find bin Laden (just by the way, it didn’t work, as none of the health workers actually were able to access the bin Laden house, though CIA officials claim the program did help obtain other useful information). In light of all the righteous American outrage over this prison sentence, let’s consider what the U.S. Government would do if the situation were reversed: namely, if an American citizen secretly cooperated with a foreign intelligence service to conduct clandestine operations on U.S. soil, all without the knowledge or consent of the U.S. Government, and let’s further consider what would happen if the American citizen’s role in those operations involved administering a fake vaccine program to unwitting American children. Might any serious punishment ensue? Does anyone view that as anything more than an obvious rhetorical question?

There are numerous examples that make the point. As’ad AbuKhalilposes this one: “Imagine if China were to hire an American physician who would innocently inject unsuspecting Americans with a chemical to obtain information for China.  I am sure that his prison term would be even longer.” Or what if an American doctor of Iranian descent had done this on behalf of the Quds Force, in order to find a member of the designated Iranian Terror group MeK who was living in the United States (one who, say, has been working with Israel to help assassinate Iranian nuclear scientists and wound their wives, or one who was trained by the U.S.), after which Iranian agents invaded his American home, pumped bullets in his skull and shot a few others (his wife and a child) and then dumped his corpse into the Atlantic Ocean? Or take the case of Orlando Bosch, the CIA-backed anti-Cuban Terrorist long harbored by the U.S.; suppose a Cuban-American doctor sympathetic to Castro had injected American children as part of a fake vaccination program in order to help Cuba find and kill Bosch on U.S. soil; he’d be lucky to get 33 years in prison.

In fact, the U.S. Government tries to impose the harshest possible sentences on Americans who do far less than Dr. Afridi did in Pakistan. The Obama administration charged former NSA official Thomas Drake with espionage and tried to imprison him fordecades merely because he exposed serious waste, corruption and illegality in surveillance programs — without the slightest indication of any harm to national security. Right now, they’re charging Bradley Manning with “aiding the enemy” — Al Qaeda — and attempting to impose life imprisonment on the 23-year-old Army Private, merely because he leaked information to the world showing serious war crimes and other government deceit (something The New York Times does frequently) which nobody suggests was done in collaboration with or even with any intent to help Al Qaeda or any other foreign entity. Given all that, just imagine how harshly they’d try to punish an American who secretly collaborated with a foreign intelligence service — who created a fake vaccine program for American kids — to enable secret military action on U.S. soil without their knowledge.

But of course none of these comparisons is equivalent. It’s all different when it’s done to America rather than by America. That’s the great prize for being the world’s imperial power: the rules you impose on others don’t bind you at all. I’m quite certain that none of the people voicing such intense rage over Pakistan’s punishment of Dr. Afridi would voice anything similar if the situation were reversed in any of the ways I’ve just outlined. Can you even imagine any of them saying something like: yes, this American doctor injected American kids with ruse vaccines in order to help the intelligence service of Iran/Pakistan/China/Cuba conduct clandestine operations on U.S. soil without the knowledge of the U.S. Government, but I think that’s justified and he shouldn’t be punished.

If you read or watch any accounts of life in the Roman empire, what you will frequently witness is someone being severely punished for an act against a Roman citizen. That was the most severe crime and the one most harshly punished: one could do any manner of bad things to non-citizens, but not so much as raise a hand to a Roman citizen.

Watch how often that formulation is used in our political discourse: he tried to kill Americans, people will emphasize when justifying all sorts of U.S. government actions. In other words, there are ordinary, pedestrian crimes (like this one, from today: “An American drone fired two missiles at a bakery in northwest Pakistan Saturday and killed four suspected militants, officials said, as the U.S. pushed on with its drone campaign despite Pakistani demands to stop. This was the third such strike in the country in less than a week”). But then there is the supreme crime: he tried to kill Americans! It’d be one thing if this outrage were honestly expressed as self-interest (we give massive aid to Pakistan so they should do our bidding), but instead, it is, as usual, couched in moral terms.

That is the imperial mind at work. Its premises are often embraced implicitly rather than knowingly: American lives are inherently more valuable; foreign lives are expendable in pursuit of American interests; the U.S. has the inalienable right to take action in other countries that nobody is allowed to take in the U.S. (just imagine: “An Iranian drone fired two missiles at a bakery in the northwest U.S. Saturday and killed four suspected militants, Iranian officials said, as Iran pushed on with its drone campaign despite American demands to stop. This was the third such strike in the country in less than a week” or “Thirty five women and children were killed by a Yemeni cruise missile armed with cluster bombs which struck an alleged Marine training camp in Texas”).

These self-venerating imperial prerogatives are the premises driving the vast bulk of American foreign policy and military discourse. It is certainly what’s driving the spectacle of so many people pretending that the punishment of Dr. Afridi is some sort of aberrational act which the U.S. and other Decent, Civilized Countries would never do.

* * * * *

Two related points:

(1) NPR emphasizes what appear to be the genuine due process deficiencies in the punishment imposed on Dr. Afridi, though he certainly is receiving more due process than those informally and secretly accused of Treason by the U.S. Government and given the Anwar Awlaki treatment, or accused of Terrorism and targeted with a U.S. drone or locked for a decade or so in a cage without charges of any kind.

(2) Zaid Jilani, formerly of Think Progress, asks a really good question about the Hollywood Election Year film depicting the bin Laden raid being produced by Sony Pictures with the help of the Obama administration: “Will the movie feature Pakistani kids tricked into getting fake vaccines? Probably not.” If the film does mention this, I’d bet it will be to marvel at and celebrate the James-Bond-like ingenuity of the CIA.

This is a cross post from salon.com

Chinese media mock India’s Building ‘Dwarf’ Missiles Instead of Toilets

‘Gao Zugui of the Institute of International Strategic Studies, who said: “Despite giving a little support, it was right in saying that if it really wants to become a great nation, each of its families should have a toilet first.”‘

[How can India's foolish talk about becoming a military "Superpower" be taken seriously anywhere, when so many children in the country go to bed hungry, sleep in the streets, use the alleys and railroad tracks for toilets and are otherwise "untouchable"?  Indian leaders imagine that they can play "world statesmen" without first ensuring that they have something like "no child left behind."]

Chinese media mock India’s ‘dwarf’ missile

The missile has a range of more than 5,000km – far enough to reach most of China

While the Indian media are being swept along by the euphoria of the successful test launch of Delhi’s first long-range ballistic missile – which can reach deep within China – Chinese papers have dismissed outright its impact on India’s military might vis-a-vis China.

The press termed the test a “missile delusion” and a mere “show of strength”.

While the Indian media dubbed it a “China-killer”, state-run Chinese newspapers mocked the latest Indian missile, the Agni-V, calling it a “dwarf” compared to China’s own missiles.

Both Chinese- and English-language newspapers rejected the view that this missile would tilt the strategic balance in the region towards India, something that the Indian media have been celebrating for the past two days.

Chinese official reaction has been more restrained, with Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lui Weimin calling India a “partner and not a rival”.

In its editorial on Thursday – the day of the launch – the state-run English-language newspaper Global Times dismissed India “standing a chance” in a confrontation with China.

“India should not overestimate its strength… For the foreseeable future, India would stand no chance in an overall arms race with China,” the editorial said.

‘No breakthrough’

On 20 April, an editorial in the state-run newspaper Huanqiu Shibaosaid India’s strategic strike force was in “early childhood”.

It further mocked the missile programme by saying that the Agni-V showed “the backwardness of Indian missiles” and was “merely one of the concrete displays of its social and economic development as a whole lagging behind China”.

In a similar vein, commentator Wu Xuelan wrote in the Communist Party newspaper Renmin Wang that India has always “cherished the dream of becoming a major power” but its social problems “are still very serious”.

Instead of wasting money on developing missiles, India “should do a better job in terms of [improving] the lives of ordinary people”, the newspaper said.

In an interview with the English-language China Daily, a senior researcher from the Academy of Military Science, Yao Yunzhu, said that the new missile is not a “significant breakthrough for India”.

Mr Yao said it was just “an improvement on the range” that in no way will change the “current military strength contrast between the two countries”.

Even commentators and analysts on CCTV‘s Global Watch programme on 19 April dismissed the strategic impact of the new missile launch.

Song Xiaojun, the editor of the Chinese Military Magazine, played down India’s military strength.

“Without an adequate tank corps and a heavy-duty land force with adequate heavy weapons, it can hardly become a so-called ‘China killer’ by relying solely on nuclear weapons,” he said.

Similar views were echoed by Gao Zugui of the Institute of International Strategic Studies, who said: “Despite giving a little support, it was right in saying that if it really wants to become a great nation, each of its families should have a toilet first.”

Hong Kong’s English-language newspaper, the South China Morning Post, on 20 April quipped that “India insists the missile – dubbed the ‘China killer’ in some of the country’s more colourful media – is only for deterrent purposes”.

But: “Amid a powder keg of security concerns and competition for energy resources as China’s rise transforms the political landscape, it poses a potential threat to regional stability and harmony.”

Brigade that posed with dead Afghan bombers showed signs of trouble

[This brigade was working under extreme mental duress after multiple deployments to both Iraq and Afghanistan, just like the troubled brigade which  produced the man or men responsible for the slaughter of 17 Afghanis  in March (SEE: Afghan Shooter Said To Be Suffering Traumatic Shock, a.k.a., “Battle Fatigue”).  

 The deep visceral resentment being felt because of this Pentagon policy which keeps men separated from their families often reveals itself in the form of dehumanized soldiers who come to see "the enemy" as something less than human.  Anger at the Army's breech of promise for forcing multiple deployments upon them may be acted-out in murderous rampages or in acts of human desecration, with the intention of embarrassing the Army whenever the evidence trail which they are leaving is exposed to the media.  Whenever "professional" soldiers repeatedly trash religious artifacts and desecrate the dead it demonstrates a common attitude which must arise from a common source--from their training.  These rampaging soldiers and the idiots who create photographic evidence of their behaviors are really screaming-out to the Army, that something bad is wrong and then leaving the hard evidence to prove it.  

The hard truth remains that the US Army is supposed to represent "the best of the best," defending America's ideals, but, over and over it shows the world this kind of primitive behavior instead.  The image that is being slowly defined in the media is the brutal, bestial side of the American Republic, which we have so far, managed to keep hidden from most of the world.  

The fact remains that the longer we remain in a state of perpetual war, the more our inhumanity is exposed.  Beliefs in "American exceptionalism," as the basis of the military philosophy inculcated in successive waves of trainees, has to come-out everyday on the battlefield, whenever soldiers see common Afghans daring to shoot at Americans.]

Newly published photos show US soldiers posing with dead Afghan insurgents, trophy-like. In 2009, before that brigade had left for Afghanistan, its commander was uneasy.

By Anna Mulrine, Staff Writer

Soldiers from 4th Brigade, 82nd Airborne division are silhouetted as they walk during a mission in the Maiwand district of Kandahar Province in Afghanistan this month. Some troops from the brigade posed for pictures with dead Afghan insurgents in 2010.

Baz Ratner/Reuters

WASHINGTON

Col. Brian Drinkwine had an inkling of trouble even before his 4th brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division left for Afghanistan.

Originally slated to go to Iraq, the brigade received a change in orders: become badly-needed mentors for Afghan security forces. At the time, the brigade was the largest single Army unit ever given the specific mission of training Afghan troops, a mission that senior Pentagon officials acknowledged had too few resources and too little focus.

The troops of the 4th were less than enthusiastic, said Colonel Drinkwine in a June 2009 interview.

IN PICTURES: The Growing US, Afghanistan Divide

“I cannot say there wasn’t some initial disappointment when we learned that’s what we would be doing,” he said, suggesting that his troops were concerned by the notorious corruption in Afghanistan.

He predicted confusion and uncertainty on the battlefield. “When I was young, I had a jeep. You could look under the hood and know what’s going on, how it all works,” he said. The tour for his brigade in the months to come would not be like that, he acknowledged.

Now, the Los Angeles Times has published photos taken in 2010 of members of that brigade posing with the body parts of insurgent bombers who had blown themselves up. The news raises questions about the tensions between the rigors of war for soldiers on multiple deployments and the possible breakdown of leadership within the brigade run by Drinkwine, a former division one hockey goalie at West Point.

Command climate becomes increasingly important in the face of the stress of multiple deployments, as troops of the 4th experienced, says Christopher Swift, fellow at the University of Virginia’s Center for National Security Law. Failures in good order and discipline – such US soldiers posing with enemy body parts – can point to “failure of command responsibility,” Dr. Swift adds, “rather than a fundamental pathology on the part of soldiers.”

Failure of leadership has been a recurring theme among US forces in Afghanistan this year.

• In January, it came to light that Marines – including a squad leader – had urinated on the corpses of dead Taliban fighters, videotaping the incident for posterity.
• This was followed closely by charges of insensitivity and possible leadership failure after US service members burned Qurans, sparking a week of riots and the death of six US troops.
• In March came a shooting rampage by a US soldier that left 17 Afghan civilians dead.

But he also said the photos represented “a breakdown in leadership and discipline that he believed compromised the safety of the troops.”

Revelations of the photographs had senior defense officials once again promising an investigation “that could lead to disciplinary measures.” Said Pentagon spokesman George Little: “Anyone found responsible for this inhuman conduct will be held accountable in accordance with our military justice system.”

But critics point out that the photographs are two years old, yet no disciplinary action has been taken in the interim, even though the names of most of the soldiers who participated in the photographs are known, according to the Times.

Historically, the US military has chosen not to hold commanders responsible for the actions of “renegade” troops. The trial earlier this year of a Marine charged with crimes for the murder of two dozen Iraqi civilians in Haditha resulted in six Marines who had their cases dropped, and one found not guilty. A low-ranking officer, Capt. Randy Stone, was initially charged with dereliction of duty and violating a lawful order, but these charges, too, were dropped.

In the notorious case of Abu Ghraib, the highest ranking officer to be brought up on charges, Col.Thomas Pappas, was relieved of his command for allowing military dogs to be present during interrogations or Iraqi prisoners. Lt. Col. Steven Jordan was acquitted of all prisoner mistreatment charges. The remainder of those who faced charges were low-ranking enlisted soldiers, who received sentences that ranged from three months of hard labor to 10 years in prison.

Senior US military officials overwhelmingly tend to stress instead that the actions were those of a few bad apples. In the statement released on the heels of this latest scandal, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta did not veer from this approach. “These images by no means represent the values or professionalism of the vast majority of US troops serving in Afghanistan today,” wrote Mr. Little on Secretary Panetta’s behalf.

Afghan Thrill Killing–American Death Squad

Rahmat Gul/AP Photo

Afghans burn an effigy depicting the U.S. following the killing of civilians in Panjwai, Kandahar by a U.S. soldier during a protest in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, March 13, 2012.

FBI Warns of Homegrown Violence After Afghan Massacre

By PIERRE THOMAS (@PierreTABC) , JASON RYAN (@JasonRyanABC) , RICHARD ESPOSITO and RHONDA SCHWARTZ

Federal authorities have issued a warning there could be “acts of violence” in the homeland sparked by the recent massacre of 16 civilians in Afghanistan allegedly by an American soldier.

Afghan Thrill Killing–American Death Squad, posted with vodpod

“The FBI and DHS [Department of Homeland Security] are concerned that this event could contribute to the radicalization or mobilization of homegrown violent extremists [HVEs] in the homeland, particularly against U.S.-based military targets which HVEs have historically considered legitimate targets for retaliation in response to past alleged U.S. military actions against civilians overseas,” the FBI and DHS said in a joint “awareness bulletin” to law enforcement agencies Wednesday.

The bulletin noted that there is no specific threat at this time and said it is “unlikely” the recent killings and other “high-profile perceived offenses against Islam” would motivate any homeland extremist to violent action. “However,” the bulletin says, “[the killings] will likely be incorporated into violent extremist propaganda and could contribute to an individual’s radicalization to violence.”

High level federal officials have repeatedly warned that one of the greatest threats facing the American homeland comes from self-radicalized, homegrown terrorists who may be inspired by — but have little to no contact with — major terrorist groups.  In December, a Congressional report released by the staff of Rep. Peter King, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said such homegrown terrorists were a “severe and emerging threat” to the U.S. military at home and said military communities in the U.S. “have recently become the most sought-after targets of violent Islamist extremists seeking to kill Americans in their homeland.”

READ: Homegrown Islamic Terror ‘Severe’ Threat to US Military at Home, Report Says

Tensions at home and abroad have been strained since an American soldier was accused of systematically murdering 16 Afghan civilians — mostly women and children — in the middle of the night Sunday, apparently in an unprovoked attack in Kandahar.

The soldier, identified only as a staff sergeant hailing from Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state, surrendered when he returned to his base in Afghanistan and has since been moved to Kuwait.

READ: Afghanistan Killings and the Troubled History of American Base

The killings have sparked some heated protests in Afghanistan during which Afghans burned an effigy of President Barack Obama as well as the cross.

Speaking of the alleged killing spree, Obama said Tuesday, “The United States takes this as seriously as if it were our own citizens and our own children who were murdered.”

“The killing of innocent civilians is outrageous and it’s unacceptable. It’s not who we are as a country and it does not represent our military,” he said.

ABC News’ Lee Ferran contributed to this report.

 

 

Afghan Massacre–The Regonal Perspective

The Regonal Perspective: Afghan Massacre

nCa

Tariq Saeedi

Ashgabat, 12 March 2012 (nCa) — In the early hours of Sunday, one or more American soldier(s) left their base in Punjwai, some 35 km west of Kandhar, with the express intention to murder unarmed women and children.

The accounts differ. Taliban say it was a group of drunken soldiers, the ISAF says it was a lone slaughterer.

Whether it was one soldier or several, the mission was well planned. There were at hand enough arms and ammunition to murder large number of civilians and also the means to burn their dead bodies.

The number of casualties is still uncertain: if you trust the Taliban, there were about 45 deaths, if you listen to the Afghan government, the death toll was 16.

Central Asia, a region sensitive to developments in Afghanistan, is watching carefully. Instead of being judgmental, the decision-makers in Central Asia tend to be analytical. Here are some of the likely conclusions they might draw from Punjwai massacre:

• If the Americans can do this in Afghanistan, they can certainly do it in Central Asia if given the basing rights with prolonged presence.

• Looking at the past pattern, the US government would do almost nothing to either punish the culprits in proportion to their crime, or take effective measures to prevent such outrage to take place in future. On both counts, Central Asia is expected to harden its stance against any more cooperation with the USA, with the possible exception of Uzbekistan.

• Most of the victims of the Punjwai (also spelled Panjwayi) massacre were children and women. This would make Central Asia contemplate on how far they can go in putting their own children and women in the harm’s way.

• The American Centres across Central Asia would come under closer scrutiny ——- If these are the ‘American values’ (pumping bullets into sleeping children and women), how far the Americans should be allowed to teach these ‘values’ to the Central Asian youth.

• A web of lies is already being woven around this incident. Central Asia would be prompted to think where else they are being lied to by the Americans.

To be continued . . .

US Soldier Goes On Killing Spree–16 Dead

[Washington has lost control of events in Afghanistan, thanks to countless incidents like these of American soldiers showing their complete lack of respect for the Afghan people and Muslims in general, whether that be by burning Qurans, pissing on corpses, or massacring two or three villages.  It is more than likely that we are about to see an Afghan uprising against the American presence, after all of this.  This is the straw that broke the Empire's back, and it was all because of the handiwork of the American fighting men and the general disregard for all life in the American culture which produced them.]

US Soldier Goes On Killing Spree–16 Dead, posted with vodpod

U.S. servicemember opens fire on Afghans; 16 reported dead

BALANDI, Afghanistan (AP) – An American soldier opened fire on villagers near his base in southern Afghanistan on Sunday and killed 16 civilians, according to President Hamid Karzai who called it an “assassination” and furiously demanded an explanation from Washington.

Nine children and three women were among the dead.

The killing spree deepened a crisis between U.S. forces and their Afghan hosts over Americans burning Muslim holy books on a base in Afghanistan. The burnings sparked weeks of violent protests and attacks that left some 30 people dead. Six U.S. servicemembers have been killed by their Afghan colleagues since the Quran burnings came to light, but the violence had just started to calm down.

“This is an assassination, an intentional killing of innocent civilians and cannot be forgiven,” Karzai said in a statement. He said he has repeatedly demanded the U.S. stop killing Afghan civilians.

The violence over the Quran burnings spurred calls in the U.S. for a faster exit strategy from the 10-year-old Afghan war. President Obama even said recently that “now is the time for us to transition.” But he also said he had no plan to change the current timetable that has Afghans taking control of security countrywide by the end of 2014.

The tensions between the two countries had appeared to be easing as recently as Friday, when the U.S. and Afghan governments signed a memorandum of understanding about the transfer of Afghan detainees to Afghan control — a key step toward an eventual strategic partnership to govern U.S. forces in the country.

But Sunday’s shooting could push that agreement further away.

“This is a fatal hammer blow on the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan. Whatever sliver of trust and credibility we might have had following the burnings of the Quran is now gone,” said David Cortright, the director of policy studies at Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies and an advocate for a quick withdrawal from Afghanistan.

“This may have been the act of a lone, deranged soldier. But the people of Afghanistan will see it for what it was, a wanton massacre of innocent civilians,” Cortright said.

Five people were wounded in the pre-dawn attack in Kandahar province, including a 15-year-old boy named Rafiullah who was shot in the leg and spoke to the president over the telephone. He described how the American soldier entered his house in the middle of the night, woke up his family and began shooting them, according to Karzai’s statement.

NATO officials apologized for the shootings but did not confirm that anyone was killed, referring instead to reports of deaths.

“I wish to convey my profound regrets and dismay at the actions apparently taken by one coalition member in Kandahar province, said a statement from Lt. Gen. Adrian Bradshaw, the deputy commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan.

“One of our soldiers is reported to have killed and injured a number of civilians in villages adjacent to his base. I cannot explain the motivation behind such callous acts, but they were in no way part of authorized ISAF military activity,” he said, using the abbreviation for NATO’s International Security Assistance Force.

An AP photographer saw 15 bodies between the two villages caught up in the shooting. Some of the bodies had been burned, while others were covered with blankets.

Villagers packed inside the minibus looked on with concern as a woman spoke to reporters. She pulled back a blanket to reveal the body of a smaller child wearing what appeared to be red pajamas. A third dead child lay amid a pile of green blankets in the bed of a truck.

NATO spokesman Justin Brockhoff said a U.S. servicemember had been detained at a NATO base as the alleged shooter. The wounded people were evacuated to NATO medical facilities, he added.

The attack took place in two villages in the Panjwai district of southern Kandahar province. The villages — Balandi and Alkozai — are about 500 yards away from a U.S. base. The shooting started around 3 a.m., said Asadullah Khalid, the government representative for southern Afghanistan and a member of the delegation that went to investigate the incident.

A resident of the village of Alkozai, Abdul Baqi, told the AP that, based on accounts of his neighbors, the American gunman went into three different houses and opened fire.

“When it was happening in the middle of the night, we were inside our houses. I heard gunshots and then silence and then gunshots again,” Baqi said.

International forces have fought for control of Panjwai for years as they’ve tried to subdue the Taliban in their rural strongholds. The Taliban movement started just to the north of Panjwai and many of the militant group’s senior leaders, including chief Mullah Omar, were born, raised, fought or preached in the area. Omar once ran an Islamic school in an area of Panjwai that has since been carved into a new district.

In addition to its symbolic significance, the district is an important base for the Taliban to use to target neighboring Kandahar city. Panjwai was seen as key to securing Kandahar city to east when U.S. forces flooded the province as part of Obama’s strategy to surge in the south starting in 2009.

Karzai said he was sending a high-level delegation to investigate and deliver a full report.

Twelve of the dead were from Balandi, said Samad Khan, a farmer who lost all 11 members of his family, including women and children. Khan was away from the village when the incident occurred and returned to find his family members shot and burned. One of his neighbors was also killed, he said. It was unclear how or why the bodies were burned.

“This is an anti-human and anti-Islamic act,” said Khan. “Nobody is allowed in any religion in the world to kill children and women.”

Khan demanded that Karzai punish the American shooter.

“Otherwise we will make a decision,” said Khan. “He should be handed over to us.”

Residents in Alkozai village also demanded that Karzai punish the American or hand him over to the villagers. The four people killed in the village were all from one family, said a female relative who was shouting in anger. She did not give her name because of the conservative nature of local society.

“No Taliban were here. No gunbattle was going on,” said the woman. “We don’t know why this foreign soldier came and killed our innocent family members. Either he was drunk or he was enjoying killing civilians.”

The Taliban called the shootings the latest sign that international forces are working against the Afghan people.

“The so-called American peace keepers have once again quenched their thirst with the blood of innocent Afghan civilians in Kandahar province,” the Taliban said in a statement posted on a website used by the insurgent group.

U.S. forces have been implicated in other violence in the same area.

Four soldiers from a Stryker brigade out of Lewis-McChord, Washington, have been sent to prison in connection with the 2010 killings of three unarmed men during patrols in Kandahar province’s Maiwand district, which is just northwest of Panjwai. They were accused of forming a “kill team” that murdered Afghan civilians for sport — slaughtering victims with grenades and powerful machine guns during patrols, then dropping weapons near their bodies to make them appear to have been combatants.

And in January, before the Quran burning incident, a video that purportedly showed U.S. Marines urinated on corpses of men they had killed sparked widespread outrage.

President Obama has apologized for the Quran burnings and said they were a mistake.

 

Why the US Needs a Major War

oriental review

By Viktor BURBAKI (Russia)

At the moment, we find ourselves in the middle of a turbulent phase of the global evolutionary cycle which commenced in the 1980s and is projected to end by the middle of the XXI century. In the process, the US is clearly loosing its hyperpower status…

Estimates offered by experts from the Russian Academy of Science show that the current period of severe instabilities should end roughly in 2017-2019 with a crisis. The crisis will not be as deep as those of 2008-2009 or 2011-2012 and will mark the transition to an economy built on a novel technological basis. The economic revival will, in 2016-2020, likely entail serious shifts in the global power balance and serious military-political conflicts involving both the global heavyweights and the developing countries. The epicenters of the conflicts will supposedly be located in the Middle East and the post-Soviet Central Asia.

The century of the US global military-political dominance and economic primacy appears to be nearing completion. The US failed the unipolarity test and, bled by permanent Middle Eastern conflicts, currently lacks the resources retaining the global leadership would take.

Multipolarity implies a much fairer distribution of wealth across the world and a profound transformation of the international institutions such as the UN, the IMF, the World Bank, etc. At the moment the Washington consensus seems irreversibly dead and the global agenda should be topped by the task of building an economy with much lower uncertainty levels, tighter financial regulations, and greater justice in the allocation of revenues and economic benefits.

The centers of economic development are drifting from the West, which counts the industrial revolution among the main accomplishments on its record, to Asia. China and India should be preparing for an unprecedented economic race in the process against the backdrop of the wider competition between the economies employing the state capitalism and the traditional democracy models. China and India, the world’s two top-populous countries, will define the directions and the pace of development in the future, but the main battle over global primacy is going to be played out between the US and China, with the choice of the XXI century post-industrial socioeconomic model and political system at stake.

The question arising in the context is how the US is going to react to the transition?

* * *

It has to be taken into account that any US strategy proceeds from the assumption that loosing the global primacy is unacceptable to the country. The linkage between global leadership and the XXI century prosperity is an axiom for the US elites regardless of political details.

Mathematical modeling of the global geopolitical dynamics warrants the conclusion that a victorious large-scale war fought with conventional warfare is the US only option to reverse the fast meltdown of its unsurpassed geopolitical status.

It is an open secret that occasionally non-military methods of pushing rivals off the stage – as in the case of the collapse of the Soviet Union – also work, and the corresponding technologies are being permanently polished in the US. On the other hand, up to date countries like China or Iran evidently prove immune to external manipulation. If the current geopolitical dynamics persists, the global leadership change can be expected by 2025, and the only way the US can derail the process being to ignite a major war…

The country facing an imminent leadership loss has no option but to strike first, and this is what Washington has been doing over the past 15 years. The US specific tactic is to pick as a target not an alternative candidate for geopolitical primacy but countries engaging which appears affordable at the moment. Attacking Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and Iraq, the US sought to handle purely economic or relatively minor regional problems, but a bigger game would clearly require a more significant target. Military analysts hold that Iran plus Syria and the non-Arab Shia groups such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah face the greatest chances of getting hit in the name of a new global redistribution.

The redistribution is in fact underway. The Arab Spring spun off and managed by Washington created the appropriate conditions for a merger of the Muslim world within a single caliphate. The US plan is that this new formation will help the waning hyperpower maintain its grip on the world’s key energy resources and safeguard its interests vis-a-vis Asia and Africa. No doubt, the challenge prompting the US to compose this new type of arrangement is the swelling might of China.

Getting rid of Iran and Syria which stand in the way of the US global dominance would be Washington’s natural next step. Attempts to topple the Iranian regime by means of inciting civilian unrest in the country failed fabulously, and military analysts suspect that an intervention scenario akin to those implemented in dealing with Iraq and Afghanistan eventually awaits Iran. The plan has serious chances to materialize even though as of today even the withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan presents the US with considerable problems.

Ralph Peters’ Map of the Middle East, 2006

The implementation of the Greater Middle East project – along with appreciable damage to the standing of Russia and China – would be the key prizes the US hopes to win by fighting a major war… The design became widely known in the US following the publication in the Armed Forces Journal of the notorious Peters map. The motivation which loomed behind the artifact was to muscle Russia and China out of the Mediterranean region and the Middle East, to cut Russia off the South Caucasus and Central Asia, and to disconnect China from its most important energy suppliers.

The materialization of the Greater Middle East plan would ruin Russia’s prospects for a peaceful and steady development as the unstable US-controlled South Caucasus would be sending shock waves across the North Caucasus. Since, obviously, the unrest would be detonated by the forces of Muslim fundamentalism, Russia’s predominantly Muslim regions are sure to be affected.

The US is unable to sustain the Washington consensus any longer relying on economic and political instruments. China’s Jemin Jibao painted the picture with utmost clarity when it wrote that the US grew into a global parasite which prints unlimited quantities of dollars, exports them to pay for its imports, and thus buys Americans lavish living standards by robbing the rest of the world. Russia’s premier expressed a similar view during his November 17, 2011 China tour.

At the moment China is pressing hard to limit the sphere of the US dollar circulation. The share of the US currency in China’s reserves is shrinking, and in April, 2011 the Chinese Central Bank announced a plan to completely opt out of the US dollar in international clearances. The blow to the US currency domination will not remain unanswered, obviously. Iran is similarly trying to reduce the dollar share in its transactions: an Iranian oil exchange opened in July, 2011, where only Euro and Iran’s own currency are accepted. Iran and China are negotiating over the supply of Chinese products in return for Iran’s oil, which, among other things, would make it possible to route trade around the sanctions imposed on Iran. The Iranian leader said his country’s trade volume with China should reach $100b, and that would render the US plans to isolate Iran meaningless.

The US efforts to undermine stability in the Middle East may in part be attributable to the reckoning that the reconstruction of the region’s devastated infrastructures would necessitate massive dollar infusions, the result being the revitalization of the US economy. In 2011, the US strategy aimed at preserving its global leadership started to translate into power-based policies as Washington considers depreciating the dollar holdings among the possible solutions to the crisis problem. A major war can actually serve the purpose. In its wake, the winner would be able to impose its own terms on the rest of the world as it did when the Bretton-Woods system came into being in 1944. For Washington, running the world takes being ready to fight a major war.

Can Iran, given the necessary backing, put an end to the US universal expansion? The question will be addressed in the next article.

Source: Strategic Culture Foundation

The Silk Road Block Named Islam Karimov

[Even though the following is taken from the Soros website, EurasiaNet, it is news from inside the CA dictatorships which doesn't seem to be available anywhere else.  In figuring-out what is going on in Islam Karimov's mind, when he does stupid things like this escalation of the "railroad wars" (which are also a manifestation of the Rogun Dam wars, a.k.a., the water wars), one might tend to see the American hand (CIA) behind it.  The American NDN deal with Karimov does not give Obama some sort of veto over Uzbek actions, judging by the Uzbek rejection of NATO's recent regional conference on Afghanistan in Istanbul. 

Dictators will be dictators, and that alone may be enough to explain the peculiar nature of the international railway hostilities shaping-up over there.  If Kazakhstan continues to protest Karimov's actions by making reciprocal rail closures of their own, with everybody withholding vital winter supplies to everyone else, then there will indeed be riots in both Tajikistan and Uzbekistan--FOOD RIOTS!  These could easily turn into the next colored uprisings. 

Which side will come to the aid of the beleaguered governments then, US or Russian (SEE: Smashing Greater Central Asia – Part IV)?  If NATO forces are willing to do to starving rioters what they did to Gaddafi, then the southern portion of the pipeline wars for CA will be resolved in America's favor.   If Obama is not willing to perform this service for both governments, then the game will also be over and Putin will have won, as long as he is willing to bust some hungry heads. 

A very ugly scenario is shaping-up for Afghanistan's neighbors and it has nothing to do with Afghanistan or Islamists.]

Uzbekistan: The Little Engine That Couldn’t

You might call it the train in vain. And it has troubling implications for a US plan to stoke East-West trade via a New Silk Road, as well as keep American and NATO troops well supplied in Afghanistan.

When it was launched in late summer, authorities boasted that a new high-speed train linking Tashkent and Samarkand symbolized Uzbekistan’s rapid modernization. But the train ran for only a couple of weeks before service was suddenly suspended without explanation. The train – named Afrosiyob in honor of a mythic king who unified Central Asia — now stands as an embarrassing reminder of dysfunction at the state railway company.

The country’s civilian railway system features about 4,500 kilometers of track, making it, in theory, an ideal bridge connecting Asia and Europe. Drawing on its Soviet-era status as Central Asia’s transit hub, Uzbek officials still like to believe that all railroads go through Tashkent. And authorities in Tashkent likewise are said to be proponents of the New Silk Road concept.

But there is a disconnect between Uzbek rhetoric and actions. Over the past 20 years, Uzbekistan has neglected investment in infrastructure while steadily erecting barriers that hamper trade with neighboring republics. These days, Tashkent often closes borders suddenly and without explanation. Neighbors are suspicious and, as recent events underscore, see few reasons to consider Uzbekistan a partner.

Since November 17, Tashkent has suspended the movement of freight cars bound for southern Tajikistan, saying a terrorist attack damaged a bridge. But Tashkent’s refusal to discuss the incident has boosted suspicions in Tajikistan and abroad that Uzbek authorities purposely sabotaged the track to hinder Dushanbe’s construction of the Rogun hydroelectric power plant, and keep Tajikistan from becoming a significant player in the so-called Northern Distribution Network, a vital US and NATO supply line to Afghanistan. Almost all US and NATO suppliesshipped by rail into northern Afghanistan pass through Uzbekistan. Difficulties with neighbors are having an adverse effect on state-run Uzbekistan Temir Yullari’s (UTY) profitability, said a Tashkent-based expert who follows the rail industry. “Officials often paint a cheerful picture [of conditions at UTY], but the reality is more complicated. Relations with neighbors are not good, and this affects trade and transportation. Mismanagement and corruption can be seen at every level [of UTY and other state enterprises],” said the expert, who spoke on condition of anonymity. An official at the Ministry of Economy said promises that UTY would be privatized and thus become more competitive had been tabled.

To the north, Kazakhstan, which has overtaken Uzbekistan as the region’s strongest economy, appears to be responding to Uzbekistan’s delays in kind. In mid-November, state rail company Kazakhstan Temir Zholy (KTZh), suspended all freight wagons bound for Uzbekistan, according to Kazakhstani media reports. The Ferghana.ru news website suggested the move was a response to Tashkent’s restrictions on Kazakh freight bound for Afghanistan. The ban was supposed to be lifted on December 12, but was extended until January. Kazakh news outlets report KTZh is looking for alternative routes to Afghanistan through Turkmenistan.

“During this period, people are busy stocking up on goods for winter,” said Kazakh Zerno, a news agency specializing in agricultural issues. “The suspension of shipments has created shortage of many goods [in Uzbekistan]. If KTZh does not resume shipment of goods in the southern direction, the situation in these countries will grow even more tense, leading to public disturbances.” Kazakh Zerno. The outlet blamed Tashkent for the suspension.
Coupled with these high-profile international disputes, the Afrosiyob high-speed train flop has left many Uzbeks skeptical of their government’s commitment to improving quality of life in the country.

Afrosiyob’s maiden journey August 29 received extensive coverage in the state-controlled press. “Introducing the first Central Asian high-speed train from Tashkent to Samarkand, on the eve of our country’s 20th anniversary, demonstrates not only serious progress in this sector, but also the great potential of domestic rail transport, which now occupies the leading position in the region,” said an August 31 commentary distributed by the official UzA news agency.

Built in Spain and equipped with nine passenger cars, including a restaurant, the Afrosiyob class of trains can carry 215 passengers and travel at up to 250 kilometers per hour on the Tashkent-Samarkand line, halving a four-hour journey on a regular train. Authorities say they have upgraded the track between Tashkent and Samarkand. A second, nine-car, two-engine Afrosiyob train arrived in Tashkent in early December, raising hopes of a fast resumption of service. The total cost of the project is 38 million euros.

Authorities have kept tight lipped about why high-speed train service was suspended in early September, though initial reports suggested the first Afrosiyob train either caught fire or derailed.
In terms of public perception, Afrosiyob’s launch was a massive bust. “Many people are reluctant to take the train because of safety concerns. The trains are too fast for the railway which has not been upgraded for a long time,” said Sohibjon, a resident of Tashkent.

Originally published by EurasiaNet.org

Iraq on the Brink of Civil War

Iraq on the brink

The Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki’s accusation that Vice-President Tariq al-Hashimi has been ordering the bombing and assassination of political opponents has caused the fragile coalition government to collapse and taken Iraq close to the kind of sectarian violence that followed the United States-led invasion in 2003. It has also exposed the hollowness of Washington’s claim that Iraqi democracy is now stable enough to justify the December 18 removal of the remaining U.S. combat troops. Mr. al-Hashimi has flown to the Kurdistan regional capital, Erbil, where he is relatively safe for the present. The national President, Jalal Talabani, and the Kurdish regional president, Masoud Barzani, have called for an immediate political conference. But the central government’s issue of an arrest warrant for Mr. al-Hashimi, and the withdrawal from parliament of Ayad Allawi’s secular-nationalist Iraqiya group, bring to an end a coalition that actually took 289 days to form after the March 2010 general election. The purported quiet of recent times, in which political violence has claimed 200-300 lives a month, has been shattered by a dozen bombings in Baghdad on December 22 that left 57 killed and 176 injured. Ominously, the attacks happened mainly in Shia-majority neighbourhoods, and could provoke sectarian retaliation.

Even temporary compromise will be very hard to achieve, not least because the Iraqi constitution itself institutionalises ethnic and sectarian divisions. The violence of the post-invasion years caused Shias and Sunnis to flee from mixed areas to regions with greater numbers of their own sect. That deepened mutual distrust and suspicion, which has been exacerbated by allegations that the Shia-dominated government is denying Sunni politicians ministerial posts or is obstructing those who hold them. Now three Sunni-majority provinces on the Syrian border are trying to form a self-governing region. Moreover, the U.S. abolition of civic bodies and the invaders’ destruction of physical infrastructure, on the assumption that all who ran those were fanatical Saddamites, have done more than wreck the everyday functioning of Iraq. They have facilitated arbitrary and brutal policing and judicial practices, with trials conducted as much by confession as on the basis of evidence — a tactic Mr. al-Maliki is now using against his political adversaries. Now the country faces disintegration. That will only add to the terrible price millions of Iraqis have paid already, while the main invader, the United States, washes its hands of responsibility for either causing or preventing it.

Do Iraq and Afghanistan Have a Date With Civil War?

[This is the sad legacy of American/NATO intervention.  Afghanistan awaits the same fate as Iraq.  Just as the leaders of Iraq's so-called "awakening movement" are coming under attack from the limitless car bombs that have been prepared, awaiting the day of retribution, so will the same fate await Afghanistan and Pakistan's anti-Taliban lashkar leaders.  After presiding over the destruction of the tribal systems which have always provided law and order, as well as the destruction of most national infrastructure, NATO washes its hands of any commitments to rebuild whatever has been taken away by the terror war, and simply leaves.  Civil war becomes the only viable solution, as all sides seek to impose some kind of order.  This is NATO's M.O.; its greatest war crimes and, in general, crimes against humanity itself.  America's puppet, the so-called "United Nations," should hold America and its partners in crime responsible for all ensuing war reparations, even the cost of peacekeeping missions. 

The photo below is of one of those Sunni awakening militias in Iraq.  They are all "MARKED MEN," now.]

Deadly attacks in northeast Iraq

BAGHDAD (AP) – Two separate attacks killed 17 people on Thursday in a northeastern Iraqi province that was once an al-Qaeda stronghold, Iraqi officials said.

source

Fighters with the Sunni awakening movement of the Iraqi Diyala province guard two blindfolded suspects during a patrol in al-Aswad village, northeast of Baghdad, Iraq on 13 December 2007. Fighters of the awakening movement in Diyala liberated the village of Al-Aswad from al-Qaeda militants

The marketplace car bombing and the assault on the home of an anti-al-Qaeda militia leader came on the third day of a visit by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, in advance of the withdrawal of American troops at the end of the year.

A parked car bomb exploded in the town of Khalis as morning shoppers were starting to arrive, killing 10 persons and wounding 22 others, two police officials said.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

Khalis, a Shiite enclave 50 miles north of Baghdad, is surrounded by the largely Sunni province of Diyala. The province was a hotbed of al-Qaeda in Iraq during the height of the country’s violence in 2004-2007.

Also in Diyala, gunmen stormed the home of an anti-al-Qaida Sunni fighter at dawn and killed seven people, police said. The victims of the attack in the town of Buhriz about 35 miles north of Baghdad included the local leader of the pro-government Sahwa or Awakening Councils movement and six members of his family, four of whom were women.

Faris al-Azawi, the spokesman of Diyala’s health directorate, confirmed the death tolls in both Khalis and Buhriz.

The attacks came as Biden met with Iraqi officials on a trip designed to chart a new relationship between the two countries ahead of the withdrawal of U.S. forces by the end of this year.

Iraqi security officials maintain that they are fully prepared for the American withdrawal, which is required under a 2008 security pact between the U.S. and Iraq. About 13,000 U.S. troops are still in the country, down from a one-time high of about 170,000. All of those troops will be out of the country by the end of December.

But many Iraqis are concerned that insurgents may use the transition period to launch more attacks in a bid to regain their former prominence and destabilize the country.

At least 56 Iraqis have been killed in separate attacks across the country in the past eight days, a warning that even more violence may be in the offing ahead of the American withdrawal.

 

Censored! There are no poor people in Saudi Arabia

Two young Saudi bloggers were sent to jail for fifteen days after uploading a ten-minute documentary on poverty in Riyadh, the capital of one of the richest petro-states in the Gulf.

Firas Buqna and Hussam Al-Darwish posted the video on YouTube on October 10. The fifth episode of their Web TV show “Mal’oub Alen” (“we’re being duped” in Arabic) touched on the living conditions of people in the poor neighbourhood of Al Jaradiya, on the outskirts of Riyadh.

 

In the report, Buqna is shocked by the relative poverty of the neighbourhood, where he comes across children “who are barefoot and don’t own any shoes.” Of the three neighbourhood residents that Buqna interviews, one “earns only 1,300 dollars (945 euros) to support his two wives and 11 children. Another resident supports 20 people with just 666 dollars (484 euros) a month.

Buqna and Al-Darwish denounce the stereotype of the wealthy, SUV-driving Saudi, explaining that 89% of the country’s citizens live in debt. The bloggers question why residents of such a wealthy country are slipping through the net and living in poverty. They point out that over the past 27 years Saudi Arabia has donated 56 billion euros to developing countries, while 22% the the country’s own citizens were reportedly living in relative poverty in 2009 (local media put the number at 30% in 2008).

poverty in saudi arabia, posted with vodpod

The young bloggers’ video did not go down well with authorities. Six days after they posted the video online, Buqna and Al-Darwish were arrested and interrogated by the police. They were released two weeks later, on October 31. The exact reasons behind their arrest remain unclear.

However, the controversy generated by their arrest has drawn over a million viewers to their online video.

“Poverty is an open secret in Saudi Arabia”

Rachid M. (not his real name) is a blogger; he lives in eastern Saudi Arabia.

There are more and more poor people in Saudi Arabia, and the middle class has all but disappeared. It’s an open secret in the kingdom.

I don’t live in Riyadh and have never visited the neighbourhood of Al Jaradiya, but in the east of the country where I live, there are far poorer neighbourhoods than what Firas Buqna showed in his video. The fact that there are a lot of oil wells in the area changes nothing. Comparing the poorest areas of Saudi Arabia with Somalia, as Buqna does at the beginning of his documentary, makes sense. There are people who live in terrible conditions, on the streets or under makeshift tents.

Poverty was officially recognised for the first time during a visit by Ali Al-Namia, the former minister of social affairs, in the neighbourhood of Al Shamishi in Riyadh in November 2002. He went with King Abdullah, who was still crown prince at the time. The footage was aired on state television. At the time, authorities decided to create a national solidarity fund. But that wasn’t enough to stop poverty from spreading. Wealth is very badly distributed in our country, and corruption is also rife [in 2010, Saudi Arabia ranked 50th in Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index list].

Official media outlets have addressed the problem in a very superficial way. They present poverty as if it affected only an isolated few and not entire swaths of the population, in one of the richest oil nations of the world.

Poor families do get government aid, but they receive symbolic amounts which absolutely don’t allow these people to meet all their needs. Not to mention the maze of bureaucratic red tape they have to go through to receive this aid. What’s more, this aid is granted only to people who have no other source of income. Low-income working families aren’t entitled to it.

“We think they were arrested because they caricatured a commonly-used phrase that honours the King”

There are several reasons for which the two bloggers may have been arrested. According to another famous blogger, nicknamed Saudi Jeans, authorities may not have liked the fact that their video was picked up by a foreign-based opposition TV network. Others think authorities were angered by the videos’ direct, defiant tone. But most people think that what got them into trouble was the fact that they caricatured a commonly-used phrase that honours the King (‘We are fine, we hope you are too’ in Arabic). The beginning of the video shows several wealthy Saudis in a large, elegant car saying ‘We are fine ,’ then a small boy from the neighbourhood of Al Jaradiya saying ‘We are not fine’.

Others think the motive of their arrest was to scare young Saudis, who increasingly use social media and new technologies to express themselves and voice criticism of the government and the country, sometimes beyond the limits imposed by authorities.”

Firas Buqna posted this photo of himself on Twitter after he was freed from prison.

In the words of a zealot…

Swami Aseemanand’s chilling confession is the first legal evidence of RSS pracharaks’ involvement in the Samjhauta Express and 2006 Malegaon blasts. ASHISH KHETAN scoops the 42-page document that reveals a frightening story of hate and deliberate mayhem

ON 18 DECEMBER 2010, a team of CBI sleuths escorted an elderly Bengali man Naba Kumar Sarkar, 59 — popularly known as Swami Aseemanand — from Tihar jail to the Tis Hazari court in Delhi, where he was produced before metropolitan magistrate Deepak Dabas. Aseemanand is the key accused in the 2007 Mecca Masjid blast that killed nine people. This was his second court appearance in a span of little over 48 hours. On 16 December, Aseemanand had requested the magistrate to record his confession about his involvement in a string of terror attacks. He stated that he was making the confession without any fear, force, coercion or inducement.

In accordance with the law, the magistrate asked Aseemanand to reflect over his decision and sent him to judicial custody for two days — away from any police interference or influence.

On 18 December, Aseemanand returned, resolute. The magistrate asked everybody except his stenographer to leave his chamber. “I know I can be sentenced to the death penalty but I still want to make the confession,” Aseemanand said.

Over the next five hours, in an unprecedented move, Aseemanand laid bare an explosive story about the involvement of a few Hindutva leaders, including himself, in planning and executing a series of gruesome terror attacks. Over the past few years, several pieces of the Hindutva terror puzzle have slowly been falling into place — each piece corroborating and validating what has gone before. First, the arrest of Sadhvi Pragya Thakur, Dayanand Pandey, Lt Col Shrikant Purohit and others in 2008. The seizure of 37 audio tapes from Pandey’s laptop that featured all these people discussing their terror activities. And most recently, the Rajasthan ATS’ chargesheet on the 2007 Ajmer Sharif blast. Aseemanand’s confession, however, is likely to prove one of the most crucial pieces for investigative agencies.

Unlike police interrogation reports or confessions, under clause 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), confessions before a magistrate are considered legally admissible evidence. Aseemanand’s statement, therefore, is extremely crucial and will have serious ramifications.

According to him, it was not Muslim boys but a team of RSS pracharaks who exploded bombs in Malegaon in 2006 and 2008, on the Samjhauta Express in 2007, in Ajmer Sharif in 2007 and Mecca Masjid in 2007. Apart from the tragic loss of innocent lives in these blasts, what makes this admission doubly disturbing is that, in keeping with their habitual practice, scores of Muslim boys were wrongly picked up by the Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra Police, in collusion with sections of the Intelligence Bureau, and tortured and jailed for these blasts — accentuating the shrill paranoia about a vast and homegrown Islamist terror network. Many of these boys were acquitted after years in jail; some are still languishing inside, their youth and future destroyed, their families reduced to penury.

In a curious twist, however, in one of those inexplicable human experiences that no one can account for, according to Aseemanand, it was an encounter with one of these jailed Muslim boys that triggered a momentous emotional transformation in him, forcing him to confront his conscience and make amends. This is what Aseemanand told the judge: “Sir, when I was lodged in Chanchalguda district jail in Hyderabad, one of my co-inmates was Kaleem. During my interaction with Kaleem I learnt that he was previously arrested in the Mecca Masjid bomb blast case and he had to spend about oneand- a-half years in prison. During my stay in jail, Kaleem helped me a lot and used to serve me by bringing water, food, etc for me. I was very moved by Kaleem’s good conduct and my conscience asked me to do prayschit (penance) by making a confessional statement so that real culprits can be punished and no innocent has to suffer.”

At this point, the magistrate asked his stenographer to leave so the confession could continue without restraint.

Tell-all evidence? A photocopy of Swami Aseemanand’s 42-page confession before the magistrate

In a signed statement written in Hindi that runs into 42 pages — and which is in TEHELKA’s possession — Aseemanand then proceeded to unravel the inner workings of the Hindutva terror network. According to him, it was not just a rump group like the ultra-right wing organisation Abhinav Bharat that engineered blasts but, shockingly, RSS national executive member Indresh Kumar who allegedly handpicked and financed some RSS pracharaks to carry out terror attacks.

“Indreshji met me at Shabri Dham (Aseemanand’s ashram in the Dangs district of Gujarat) sometime in 2005,” Aseemanand told the magistrate. “He was accompanied by many top RSS functionaries. He told me that exploding bombs was not my job and instead told me to focus on the tribal welfare work assigned to me by the RSS. He said he had deputed Sunil Joshi for this job (terror attacks) and he would extend Joshi whatever help was required.” Aseemanand further narrated how Indresh financed Joshi for his terror activities and provided him men to plant bombs. Aseemanand also confessed to his own role in the terror plots and how he had motivated a bunch of RSS pracharaks and other Hindu radicals to carry out terror strikes at Malegaon, Hyderabad and Ajmer. (TEHELKA tried contacting Indresh several times for his side of the story. He said he would call back but didn’t.)

While evidence of the involvement of RSS pracharaks in the Mecca Masjid and Ajmer blasts has been growing with every new arrest, Aseemanand’s confession is the first direct evidence of the involvement of Hindutva extremists in the 2006 Malegaon blasts and the Samjhauta Express blast. The evidence — both, direct and indirect — pieced together by the CBI shows that the broad terror conspiracy to target Muslims and their places of religious worship was hatched around 2001.

Three RSS pracharaks from Madhya Pradesh — Sunil Joshi, Ramchandra Kalsangra and Sandeep Dange — were apparently at the core of this conspiracy. As the three became more audacious in their terror ambitions they started inducting like-minded Hindutva radicals from other states, mainly Maharashtra, Gujarat and Rajasthan. While the new entrants were mostly from the RSS, Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad, some members of fringe saffron groups like Abhinav Bharat, Jai Vande Matram and Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram also joined the fray.

However, Joshi, Kalsangra and Dange took the precaution of not sharing too many details with members outside the core group. Joshi strictly followed the doctrine of division of work on a ‘need-tok-now’ basis, with each member knowing only his part of the job.

Aseemanand, who ran a Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram in Dang, first came in contact with Sunil Joshi in 2003 but it was only in March 2006 that he became actively involved in the terror plot.

It was the spirited investigation into the 2008 Malegaon blast by Maharashtra ATS chief Hemant Karkare that first blew the lid off this broad Hindutva terror conspiracy. Karkare arrested 11 Hindutva radicals, including Lt Col Purohit, who was attached with the military intelligence unit at Nashik; Dayanand Pandey, a self-styled religious guru who ran an ashram named Sharda Peeth in Jammu and Sadhvi Pragya, an ABVP leader turned into an ascetic, for their role in the 2008 Malegaon blast.

But Karkare’s sudden and ironic killing at the hands of Islamist jihadis in the Mumbai 26/11 attack derailed the saffron terror investigation. The Maharashtra ATS under its new chief KP Raghuvanshi failed to arrest Ramchandra Kalsangra and Sandeep Dange and instead passed them off as minor players in the chargesheet.

The investigation picked up pace again in May 2010 with the arrest of two RSS pracharaks — Devendra Gupta and Lokesh Sharma — by the Rajasthan ATS which was probing the Ajmer blast case. Gupta was the RSS Vibagh Pracharak of Muzaffarnagar, Bihar. He provided logistical support to Joshi, Kalsangra and Dange and harboured the latter two in RSS offices while they were on the run from agencies.

Lokesh Sharma was a RSS worker close to Joshi. He purchased the two Nokia phones that were used to trigger bombs at Mecca Masjid and Ajmer Sharif. It is Sharma’s interrogation that revealed for the first time that RSS national executive member Indresh Kumar was a key figure in the terror conspiracy. The joint investigation of the Rajasthan ATS and CBI, in fact, went on to reveal that, except Pragya Singh Thakur, all those who were arrested by the Maharashtra ATS in 2008 were actually fringe players while the core group comprising Indresh Kumar, Kalsangra and Dange allegedly held the key to the full terror plot.

In June 2010, the CBI examined a witness named Bharat Riteshwar, a resident of district Valsad in Gujarat and a close associate of Swami Aseemanand. Riteshwar told the CBI that Sunil Joshi was a protégé of Indresh and had his approval and logistical support for carrying out terror attacks.

On 19 November 2010 the CBI cracked down on a hideout in Haridwar and arrested Swami Aseemanand, who had been a fugitive for over two years since Sadhvi Pragya’s arrest in October 2008. His arrest unlocked many more pieces.

NABA KUMAR — alias Swami Aseemanand — was originally from Kamaarpukar village in Hooghly district in West Bengal — the birthplace of Ramakrishna Paramhansa. In 1971, after completing his BSc (honours) from Hooghly, Naba Kumar went to Bardman district to pursue a master’s degree in science. Though he was involved with RSS activities from school, it was during his post-graduation years that Naba Kumar became an active RSS member. In 1977, he started working full-time with the RSS-run Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram in Purulia and Bankura districts. In 1981, his guru Swami Parmanand rechristened him as Swami Aseemanand.

From 1988 to 1993, he served with the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram at Andaman and Nicobar islands. Between 1993 and 1997, he toured across India to deliver sermons on Hindu religion among the tribals. In 1997, he settled down in the Dangs district in Gujarat and started a tribal welfare organisation called Shabri Dham. Aseemanand was known in the area for his rabid anti-minority speeches and his relentless campaign against Christian missionaries.

Aseemanand is seen as being close to the RSS leadership. In the past, leaders like Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan, former RSS chief KS Sudarshan and current chief Mohan Bhagwat have attended religious functions organised by him at Shabri Dham.

While Aseemanand was known for his vitriolic anti-minority positions, according to his confession, it was the heinous massacre of Hindu devotees at Akshardham temple by Islamist suicide bombers in 2002 that was the first real kindle for their retaliatory terror attacks.

“The Muslim terrorists started attacking Hindu temples in 2002,” Aseemanand said. “This caused great concern and anger in me. I used to share my concerns about the growing menace of Islamic terrorism with Bharat Riteshwar of Valsad.”

In 2003, Aseemanand came in contact with Sunil Joshi and Pragya Singh Thakur. He would often discuss Islamist terrorism with them as well. Finally, according to him, it was the terror attack on Sankatmochan temple in Varanasi in March 2006 which was the real flashpoint for them.

“In March 2006, Pragya Thakur, Sunil Joshi, Bharat Riteshwar and I decided to give a befitting reply to the Sankatmochan blasts,” Aseemanand told the magistrate.

Aseemanand gave Rs. 25,000 to Joshi to arrange the necessary logistics for the blasts. He also sent Joshi and Riteshwar to Gorakhpur to seek assistance from firebrand BJP MP Yogi Adityanath. In April 2006, Joshi apparently held a hush-hush meeting with the Adityanath, infamous for his rabid anti-Muslim speeches. But Aseemanand says, “Joshi came back and told me that Adityanath was not of much help.”

However, this did not deter Aseemanand. He went ahead with his plans.

In June 2006, Aseemanand, Riteshwar, Sadhvi Pragya and Joshi again met at Riteshwar’s house in Valsad. It proved to be a chilling one, with far-reaching consequences. Joshi, for the first time, brought four associates with him — Dange, Kalsangra, Lokesh Sharma and Ashok alias Amit.

“I told everybody that bomb ka jawab bomb se dena chahiye, (I told everyone we should answer bombs with bombs),” says Aseemanand. “At that meeting I realised Joshi and his group were already doing something on the subject,” he adds.

“After the combined meeting,” Aseemanand says, “Joshi, Pragya, Riteshwar and I huddled together for a separate meeting. I suggested that 80 percent of the people of Malegaon were Muslims and we should explode the first bomb in Malegaon itself. I also said that during the Partition, the Nizam of Hyderabad had wanted to go with Pakistan so Hyderabad was also a fair target. Then I said that since Hindus also throng the Ajmer Sharif Dargah in large numbers we should also explode a bomb in Ajmer which would deter the Hindus from going there. I also suggested the Aligarh Muslim University as a terror target.”

According to Aseemanand everybody agreed to target these places.

“In the meeting,” Aseemanand continues, “Joshi suggested that it was basically Pakistanis who travel on the Samjhauta Express train that runs between India and Pakistan and therefore we should attack the train as well. Joshi took the responsibility of targeting Samjhauta himself and said that the chemicals required for the blasts would be arranged by Dange.”

Aseemanand’s confession goes on in grave detail. “Joshi said three teams would be constituted to execute the blasts. One team would arrange finance and logistics. The second team would arrange for the explosives. And the third team would plant the bombs. He also said that the members of one team should not know members from the other two teams. So even if one gets arrested the others would remain safe,” Aseemanand told the magistrate.

Hate and anger had slipped off the edge into mayhem.

‘Since Hindus throng the Ajmer Sharif Dargah we thought a bomb blast in Ajmer would deter Hindus from going there,’ the Swami said

ON 8 SEPTEMBER 2006, at 1.30 pm, four bombs exploded in the communally tense town of Malegaon in Maharashtra. Besides being a Friday, the Muslim festival Shab-e-barat was being observed. Three bombs went off in the compound of the Hamidiya Masjid and Bada Kabrastan. A fourth bomb exploded at Mushawart Chowk.

Out of three bombs, one was placed at the entrance gate of Hamidiya Masjid and Bada Kabrastan, the second on a bicycle parked in the parking lot situated inside the compound and the third was hung on the wall of the power supply room situated in front of Vaju Khana, inside the compound. The fourth bomb went off in the crowded junction of Mushawart Chowk, which was placed on a bicycle, near an electric pole. The attack was meticulously planned; the bombs exploded in quick succession. Thirty one Muslims were killed; over 312 were injured.

In a suspiciously swift investigation, the Maharashtra ATS arraigned nine Malegaon Muslims within 90 days. Eight of these were members of the Student Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), the outlawed radical Muslim outfit. Another three Malegaon Muslims were shown absconding. Stringent provisions of the draconian Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) were invoked.

On 21 December 2006, the same day that the ATS filed the chargesheet against the nine Malegaon Muslims, the Maharashtra government asked the CBI to take over the probe. In effect, the CBI was presented with a fait accompli: the case had already been so-called solved and the accused had been chargesheeted.

A year ago, the CBI filed a supplementary chargesheet but failed to produce any material evidence. For over four years, these nine Malegaon Muslims have been languishing in prison. Aseemanand’s confession now seems proof that the boys were innocent and had been arrested merely to deflect criticism and create a false sense of security among Indian citizens that the blast cases were being “solved”. The real mastermind, according to Aseemanand, was Sunil Joshi. And it was Aseemanand himself who had persuaded Joshi to explode bombs in Malegaon.

This is what he told the magistrate. “Joshi came to see me at Shabri Dham on Diwali in 2006. The Malegaon blasts had already happened. Sunil told me the blasts were carried out by our men. I said the newspaper reports had mentioned that Muslims were behind the blasts and a few Muslims had also been arrested. Sunil assured me the blasts were carried out by him but he refused to reveal the identity of our men who had executed the blasts.”

ON 18 February 2007, on the eve of the then Pakistan foreign minister Khurshid Kasuri’s visit to India to carry forward the peace dialogue, two powerful bombs went off around midnight in two coaches of the cross-border Samjhauta Express, running between Delhi and Lahore. The train had reached Diwana near Panipat, 80 km north of Delhi. The coaches turned into an inferno. The third bomb placed in another coach failed to detonate. Sixty eight people were killed. Dozens were injured. The peace dialogue received a big setback.

Investigation revealed that three suitcases filled with detonators, timers, iron pipes containing explosives and bottles filled with petrol and kerosene had been smuggled into the three coaches.

The needle of suspicion veered immediately to Pakistani extremists. Depending upon which investigating agency you were speaking to, Pakistan-based terror outfits mainly Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami (HUJI) and Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT)were blamed for the blasts. Even the US State Department called the terror attack a joint operation of the LeT and HUJI. The Haryana Police tracked down some of the material used in the blasts as being procured from a market in Indore but the trail soon went cold.

In November 2008, the Maharashtra ATS told a court in Nashik that Lt Col Purohit had procured 60 kg of RDX from Jammu & Kashmir in 2006 and a part of it was suspected to have been used in the Samjhauta Express blasts. But the ATS subsequently failed to back its claims with any evidence and was forced to retract. The Haryana cops travelled to Mumbai and interrogated Purohit and other Malegaon accused but could not find any evidence that could link them to the Samjhauta blasts.

In July 2010, the Samjhauta blast probe was handed over to the National Investigating Agency (NIA). Though it still leaves some questions and loose ends, Aseemanand’s confession now joins many other dots in relation to the Samjhauta Express.

The massacre of Hindu devotees at the Akshardham temple by Islamist bombers in 2002 was the first real kindle for the retaliatory attacks

“In February 2007,” Aseemanand told the magistrate, “Riteshwar and Joshi came on a motorbike to a Lord Shiva temple in a place called Balpur. As we had fixed this place for our meeting, I was already there, waiting for the two. Joshi told me in the next two days there would be a piece of good news and I should keep a tab on the newspapers. After the meeting I came back to Shabri Dham and Joshi and Riteshwar went their way. After a couple of days I went to meet Riteshwar at his Valsad residence. Joshi and Pragya were already present there. The Samjhauta Express blasts had happened. I asked Joshi how he was present there while Samjhauta had already happened in Haryana. Joshi replied that the blasts were done by his men.”

“In the same meeting,” Aseemanand continues, “Joshi took Rs. 40,000 from me to carry out the blasts in Hyderabad. A few months later, Joshi telephoned me and told me to keep a tab on the newspapers as some good news was in the offing. In a few days the news of the Mecca Masjid blast appeared in the papers. After 7-8 days, Joshi came to Shabri Dham and brought a Telegu newspaper with him. It had a picture of the blast. I told Joshi that in the papers it had appeared that some Muslim boys had been rounded up for the blast. But Joshi replied it was done by our people.”

LIKE IN the case of the 2006 Malegaon blast, 17 May 2007 was a Friday. At 1.30 pm, as over 4,000 Muslims assembled to offer their Friday prayers at the iconic Mecca Masjid, situated near the Charminar in the old city of Hyderabad, a bomb went off near the Wazu Khana (fountain) meant for doing wazu (ablution before prayers) inside the mosque.

Another IED contained in a blue rexine bag was found hanging near the door-way at the northern end of the mosque. Miraculously, this bomb had not exploded. With no substantive clue emerging from the blast investigation, in a cynical move, the Hyderabad police launched a mop-up operation against local Muslim boys, who were associated with Ahle Hadess, the doggedly fundamentalist sect among Sunni Muslims. Friends and family members of some known local Muslim extremists like Shahid Bilal, who had fled to Pakistan, were also rounded up. In a span of two weeks, over three dozen boys from Malakpet and Saidabaad were picked up and tortured. However, when the police failed to link them to the Mecca Masjid case, they registered three separate bogus cases and implicated the detainees in these cases.

On 9 June 2007, the CBI took over the investigation into the Mecca Masjid case.

A few months later, on 11 October 2007, during the month of Ramzan, at 6.15 pm, as Muslim devotees had begun their iftaar at Ajmer Sharif dargah, a powerful bomb went off near a tree in the compound, killing three people and injuring over a dozen. Investigators found one more unexploded IED at the site.

Swami says, ‘Joshi told me to keep a tab on the papers as some good news was in the offing. Soon after, news of the Mecca Masjid blast appeared’

According to Aseemanand, this blast had been executed by Muslim boys provided by Indresh Kumar. “A couple of days after the Ajmer blast Joshi came to see me. He was accompanied by two men named Raj and Mehul who had also visited Shabri Dham on previous occasions. Joshi claimed his men had perpetrated the blast and he was also present at Ajmer Dargah at the time of the blast. He said that Indresh had provided him two Muslim boys to plant the bomb. I told Joshi that if the Muslim boys get caught, Indresh would get exposed. I also told Joshi that Indresh might get him killed and told him to stay at Shabri Dham. Joshi then told me that Raj and Mehul were wanted in the Baroda Best Bakery case (12 Muslims were killed by rioters in Best Bakery in Gujarat 2002). I told Joshi not to keep Raj and Mehul at the ashram as it would not be safe for them to stay in Gujarat. Joshi, along with the two men, left for Dewas the next day,” said Aseemanand.

Barely two months later, on 29 December 2007, in a sudden twist, Aseemanand’s fears came true. Sunil Joshi was mysteriously murdered outside his house in Dewas, Madhya Pradesh. His family claimed he had been murdered by his own organisation. After her arrest, Sadhvi Pragya Thakur also suggested this. But the Madhya Pradesh Police failed to solve the case and filed a closure report in the court.

At the end of December 2010 though, acting on fresh leads, the Madhya Pradesh police finally accepted that Joshi had been murdered by his own friends in the RSS. They charged Mayank, Harshad Solanki, Mehul and Mohan from Gujarat, Anand Raj Katare from Indore and Vasudev Parmar from Dewas with Joshi’s murder. While Mehul and Mohan are still on the run, Solanki was brought before the Dewas court where he confessed to the murder. However, even these arrests don’t join all the dots. The police claim internal rivalry as the motive for the murder. The CBI, though, believes the real motive behind Joshi’s murder was to silence him. Joshi knew too much about the terror conspiracy and his masters were perhaps wary that they might get exposed.

ABDUL KALEEM, 21 The Muslim boy who triggered an unlikely conversion in jailKaleem, a cell phone seller, was arrested and tortured in 2007 for a blast at Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad. He spent a year-and-half in jail before being acquitted. Soon after, he was back in jail on another charge, when he met Swami Aseemanand. The Swami was struck by the boy’s kindness. When he heard that Kaleem was blamed for a blast that he and his comrades had done, he was profoundly affected and decided to confess as an act of penance.

Sunil Joshi’s murder leaves many unanswered questions. If he was one of the key figures in the terror conspiracy, as many of those arrested testify that he was, why would his comrades want to bump him off? If he was a protégé of Indresh Kumar, acting on his orders and with his sanction, why would his mentor want him dead? What could have created a rift or fallout between all of them? The murder suggests a murky and inexplicable factionalism within the sinister grouping.

With Joshi dead and much of Aseemanand’s confession based on things Joshi had told him about the blasts, it might seem that Aseemanand’s confession runs thin in certain portions and is, therefore, of uneven consequence. But Joshi was not the only piece in the puzzle. Aseemanand’s confession is powerful because it implicates himself at every juncture and points to a network of Hindutva pracharaks, who not only participated in the terror plots but were moved around and sheltered by sections of the organisation while they were on the run. Investigators believe that the arrests of Kalsangra and Dange would provide the missing pieces of the puzzle.

Joshi’s death didn’t mean the end of the horrific blasts — at least from the ultra-Hindutva side. The terror infrastructure he had created along with a few other RSS men continued to function.

ASEEMANAND CONFESSED coming into contact with the shadowy saffron terror outfit Abhinav Bharat in January 2007. Col Purohit was one of the founder members of the outfit. Aseemanand has confessed to proposing more terror strikes in a meeting of Abhinav Bharat held at Bhopal in April 2008. Sadhvi Pragya, Bharat Riteshwar, Col Purohit and Dayanand Pandey were also present in the meeting. “I participated in many Abhinav Bharat meetings and proposed to carry out more terror strikes,” Aseemanand told the magistrate.

On 29 September 2008, horror struck again. During Islam’s holy month of Ramzan, an IED went off at Bhikku Chowk, a Muslim neighbourhood in Malegaon. The bomb was concealed in a motorcycle parked in front of a locked office of SIMI. Given the paranoia that had grown around Islamist terror, it had become an accepted maxim that members of SIMI were behind every blast. No proof was ever required. Placing a bomb in front of their office, therefore, was an act of deadly symbolism for the Hindutva outfits.

A similar bomb blast was triggered almost simultaneously hundreds of miles away in a small town called Modasa in Gujarat. Like in Malegaon, the blast took place in a Muslim colony named Sukka Bazaar, outside a mosque when special Ramzan prayers were being offered. Like in Malegaon, the bomb was again concealed in a motorcycle. The two blasts were separated by a gap of five minutes.

The Malgeaon blast killed seven Muslims, including a three-year-old boy. The Modasa blast resulted in the death of a 15-year-old boy. Several others were injured.

‘I told my comrades that since the Nizam had wanted to opt for Pakistan during Partition, Hyderabad was also a fair target for us,’ the Swami said

It is a measure of the deep-seated bias that had crept into the Indian justice system that even when deadly blasts went off in the midst of Muslim neighbourhoods and mosques, Muslim boys were still automatically blamed for them. It was beyond anyone’s imagination that Hindutva groups could be behind the inhuman acts.

But as Aseemanand says, “Sometime in October 2008, Dange phoned me and said he wanted to come to Shabri Dham and stay there for a few days. I told him that since I was setting out for Nadiad (Gujarat), it would not be a good idea for him to stay there in my absence. Then Dange requested me to pick him up from a place called Vyara and drop him to Baroda which was on the way to Nadiad. I picked up Dange from Vyara bus stop in my Santro car. He was accompanied by Ramji Kalsangra. Both were carrying two or three bags stuffed with some heavy objects. They told me they were coming from Maharashtra. I dropped them at Rajpipla junction at Baroda. I later realised that it was just a day after the Malegaon blast,” said Aseemanand, before concluding his statement. His confession further corroborates the evidence put together by Karkare.

After the Maharashtra ATS arrested Sadhvi Pragya in connection with the 2008 Malegaon blast, Aseemanand went absconding. He was finally arrested by the CBI from Haridwar on 19 November 2010.

THE EMERGENCE of Hindutva terror does not leach away the horror of Islamist terror attacks on places like the Akshardham temple, Sankatmochan mandir and German Bakery in Pune, amongst others. But Aseemanand’s confession will raise many uncomfortable questions for the RSS. It is no one’s case that the actions of a few tars an entire organisation. But there are urgent questions the RSS needs to confront within itself. And answer to the nation.

Given the growing evidence about the involvement of RSS pracharaks in a series of terror blasts, how will the RSS leadership respond?

Many of these terror blasts display a high degree of sophistication in the planning and devices used, with RDX and complex bomb designs being deployed in several of them. Given that most of the foot-soldiers accused for these blasts are of very humble backgrounds, is it possible that they could execute these blasts without support and sanction from the top? Given the strictly hierarchical and disciplined nature of the organisation, is it possible that they were acting without the knowledge of their superiors? Most crucially, given the gathering evidence about the involvement of several RSS pracharaks and other affiliates in this series of terror blasts, how will the RSS leadership respond? If it is true that some members of their organisation have turned rogue, will they seek the most stringent punishment for them? The Hindutva worldview may be politically opposed to minority rights, but will it go far enough to watch some of its members drag the country further down the suicidal course of competitive terrorism between Islamist and Hindutva extremists? Or will it opt for the saner option of a cleansing within.

Related Stories The willing fundamentalist BY ASHISH KHETAN An angry hall of fall guys. And unfair arrests BY ASHISH KHETAN

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