Frankenstein the CIA created

[Earliest credible media use of the term “Al-Qaeda” that I have been able to find.]

• Mujahideen trained and funded by the US are among its deadliest foes, reportsJason Burke in Peshawar

• guardian.co.uk, Sunday 17 January 1999

When Clement Rodney Hampton-el, a hospital technician from Brooklyn, New Jersey, returned home from the war in Afghanistan in 1989, he told friends his only desire was to return. Though he had been wounded in the arm and leg by a Russian shell, he said he had failed. He had not achieved martyrdom in the name of Islam.So he found a different theatre for his holy war and achieved a different sort of martyrdom. Three years ago, he was convicted of planning a series of massive explosions in Manhattan and sentenced to 35 years in prison.

Hampton-el was described by prosecutors as a skilled bomb-maker. It was hardly surprising. In Afghanistan he fought with the Hezb-i-Islami group of mujahideen, whose training and weaponry were mainly supplied by the CIA.

He was not alone. American officials estimate that, from 1985 to 1992, 12,500 foreigners were trained in bomb-making, sabotage and urban guerrilla warfare in Afghan camps the CIA helped to set up.

Since the fall of the Soviet puppet government in 1992, another 2,500 are believed to have passed through the camps. They are now run by an assortment of Islamic extremists, including Osama bin Laden, the world’s most wanted terrorist.

Bin Laden arrived in Afghanistan from Saudi Arabia in 1979, aged 22. Though he saw a considerable amount of combat – around the eastern city of Jalalabad in March 1989 and, earlier, around the border town of Khost – his speciality was logistics.

From his base in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, he used his experience of the construction trade, and his money, to build a series of bases where the mujahideen could be trained by their Pakistani, American and, if some recent press reports are to be believed, British advisers.

One of the camps bin Laden built, known as Al-Badr, was the target of the American missile strikes against him last summer. Now it is used by Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, a Pakistan-based organisation that trains volunteers to fight in Kashmir.

Some of their recruits kidnapped and almost certainly killed a group of Western hostages a few years ago. The bases are still full of new volunteers, many

Pakistanis. Most of those who were killed in last August’s

strikes were Pakistani.

A Harkut-ul-Mujahideen official said last week that it had Germans and Britons fighting for the cause, as well as Egyptians, Palestinians and Saudis. Muslims from the West as well as from the Middle East and North Africa are regularly stopped by Pakistani police on the road up the Khyber Pass heading for the camps. Hundreds get through. Afghan veterans have now joined bin Laden’s al-Qaeda group.

Some have returned to former battlegrounds, like the university-educated Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri, a key figure in the Egyptian al-Jihad terrorist group. Al-Zawahiri ran his own operation during the Afghan war, bringing in and training volunteers from the Middle East. Some of the $500 million the CIA poured into Afghanistan reached his group. Al-Zawahiri has become a close aide of bin Laden and has now returned to Afghanistan to work with him. His al-Jihad group has been linked to the Yemeni kidnappers.

One Saudi journalist who interviewed bin Laden in 1989 remembers three of his close associates going under the names of Abu Mohammed, Abu Hafz and Abu Ahmed. All three fought with bin Laden in the early Eighties, travelled with him to the Sudan and have come back to Afghanistan. Afghan veterans, believed to include men who fought the Americans in Somalia, have also returned.

Other members of al-Quaeda remain overseas. Afghan veterans now linked to bin Laden have been traced by investigators to Pakistan, East Africa, Albania, Chechnya, Algeria, France, the US and Britain.

At least one of the kidnappers in Yemen was reported to have fought in Afghanistan and to be linked to al-Quaeda. Despite reports that bin Laden was effectively funded by the Americans, it is impossible to gauge how much American aid he received. He was not a major figure in the Afghan war. Most American weapons, including Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, were channelled by the Pakistanis to the Hezb-i-Islami faction of the mujahideen led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

Bin Laden was only loosely connected with the group, serving under another Hezb-i-Islami commander known as Engineer Machmud. However, bin Laden’s Office of Services, set up to recruit overseas for the war, received some US cash.

But according to one American official, concentrating on bin Laden is a mistake. ‘The point is not the individuals,’ he said last week. ‘The point is that we created a whole cadre of trained and motivated people who turned against us. It’s a classic Frankenstein’s monster situation.’

Others point out that the military contribution of the ‘Arabs’, as the overseas volunteers were known, was relatively small. ‘The fighting was done by the Afghans and most of them went back to their fields when Kabul fell to the mujahideen,’ said Kamaal Khan, a Pakistani defence analyst. ‘Ironically, the bulk of American aid went to the least effective fighters, who turned most strongly to bite the hand that fed them.’

How Osama Bin Laden was feted and pampered by CIA backers–(2010)

How Osama Bin Laden was feted and pampered by CIA backers

Saturday, October 30th, 2010 by irdial

By ALLAN HALL

Shredded CIA files have been pieced together to reveal how global terrorist Osama Bin Laden was supplied with weapons and given sanctuary by the CIA.

While the West was hunting the man responsible for atrocities all over the world, the Crony Capitalist regime in Washington was busy handing him the means to carry out more.

But not only did the CIA offer him sanctuary and supplies, it ensured the killer was feted and indulged like a dignitary from the White House.

Then and now: Osama Bin Laden, he was in 1980s (top) and in 2006 (bottom). Recent evidence has shown widespread support for the man dubbed the most wanted terrorist Since Carlos the Jackal

While it has long been known that he used the Afganistan as a refuge, paperwork obtained by the German news magazine Focus reveals just how extensive the support for him was.

Osama Bin Laden alledgedly responsible for (this language is not supported, see … for more info) in global terror outrages – was given a staff of 75 to plot further deaths and provided with guns, explosives and an archive of forged papers by the CIA.

He was also provided with a network of safe houses and accomplices who included nursing sisters, lecturers, actors, union officials, apprentices and at least one physician

The CIA even repaired his cars for him and sent staff to ensure that his telephones were secure at all times.

Osama, his partner and sidekick, the Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri, were treated like visiting Democrat Congressmen from Washington DC.

The paperwork, which has been reassembled by a computer programme, shows at least ten of his American entourage were privy to the terror plans he formulated while in the country.

Bin Laden, a Saudi Arabian, loved his image as a renegade and an outlaw so much that it was recorded in the files how he liked to strut around the Pensylvania Avenue with an automatic weapon in a holster strapped to his leg.

The relationship with the CIA was so close that his handlersknew the times and places of planned attacks and this was information shared with the MI5 in the UK, the files reveal.

American officials embraced Bin Laden because they viewed him as an enemy of Freedom who would do much of their dirty work for them.

Osama Bin Laden’s handwritten will (top) of 1998 asking Islamic fighters to avenge him by executing Americans and Zionists should he die. Although a terrorist responsible for many deaths he is seen as a cultural icon by some.

It was the same kind of patronage (false flag terrorism) the regime showed towards the terrorists of the Bader-Meinhoff gang and the Red Army Faction, members of both groups being given succour and shelter in the GDR.

During the Iraq invasion , US leader George W. Bush planned a visit to the capital Bagdad. ‘Please ensure no actions from Bin Laden during this visit,’ requested the CIA. Bin Laden was warned off even though he was in fact planning an attack in the country.

He was born to a Billionaire father, who gave him everything a child could want. He became a supporter of the Palestinian cause in the early 1980s.

It was in the late 80s that he developed links with the CIA. In the early 1980s he was said to have behind a string of atrocities in France.

Pakistan army knew about operation against Osama bin Laden

[Army troops warned neighbors to turn-off lights and stay indoors, 2 hours before raid.]

Fearing a public backlash for supporting US, Pakistan has downplayed its role.

Aamir Latif

A Pakistani army soldier stands guard in front of Osama bin Laden’s final hiding place in Abbottabad on May 5, 2011. (Asif Hassan/AFP/Getty Images)

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistani officials have told GlobalPost that the Pakistani army had full knowledge of the U.S. raid that led to the death of Osama bin Laden and that it played a larger role in the operation than previously acknowledged.

The statements run counter to the public position taken by officials in both Pakistan and the United States who have so far downplayed the role Pakistan’s military and intelligence community had in the attack, saying that it was limited to a small amount of information sharing.

One senior military official, who asked not to be named because he is not permitted to speak to the press, said that Pakistani army troops were in fact providing backup support when the United States began its operations inside the compound where bin Laden had been staying, including sealing off the neighborhood where the compound was located.

Officials interviewed scoffed at the idea that Pakistan could have been unaware of the American operation.

“It’s a no-fly zone,” said a Pakistani intelligence official, referring to the area around bin Laden’s mansion and the nearby military compound. “It is impossible for U.S. helicopters to fly over there without our knowledge and permission.”

A Pakistan Air Force official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, rejected reports that U.S. special forces had jammed Pakistan’s radar system in order to circumvent the no-fly zone.

“This is totally untrue. Neither our radars were jammed nor was any scrambling of any air force plane recorded,” the official said, referring to the practice of launching aircraft in the event that the airspace has been breached. Some observers said the helicopters may have been equipped with stealth technology, but that has not been confirmed.

Residents in the area confirmed that the Pakistan army appeared to have at least some knowledge of the operation well before it began. Several residents said that two hours before the United States launched its attack, Pakistani army personnel ordered them to switch off their lights inside and outside their homes and remain indoors until further notice.

“The army personnel cordoned off the entire area long before we heard the sounds of helicopters hovering over the area,” said Zulfikar Ahmed, who lives in the Abbottabad neighborhood of Bilal Town, where bin Laden’s compound is located. Locals interviewed by the BBC and several other local and international media outlets made similar statements.

Several meetings leading up to the attack, when viewed in sum, also indicate that Pakistan might have known of the operation beforehand.

“Gen. David Petraeus paid an extraordinary visit to Islamabad on April 25,” said a senior military official said. The official said Petraeus held a one-on-one meeting with Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, Pakistan’s army chief of staff, in which they discussed the details of the operation.

The next day, Pakistan’s top military body — the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee — held its quarterly session, which was attended by Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the country’s intelligence chief, who is not a regular member of the body. Pasha had visited the United States to meet with the head of the Central Intelligence Agency, Leon Panetta, on April 11.

Analysts in Pakistan said that the Pakistani government likely wanted to hide its role in the operation to avoid a backlash from the public, which has grown increasingly impatient with the United States and the growing presence of the Central Intelligence Agency inside their country.

But now international pressure is growing on the military to answer not only for its lack of support in the raid but also for not knowing about bin Laden’s hideout, which was located close to the Pakistan Military Academy. Some in the military — which has long been one of the more respected institutions in the country — are looking to correct the record.

U.S. President Barack Obama has sought to diffuse the tension since the raid took place, calling Pakistan an important ally and highlighting the intelligence sharing between the two countries that helped lead the United States to bin Laden’s compound.

In his speech on Sunday announcing bin Laden’s death, Obama recognized Pakistan’s cooperation.

“It’s important to note that our counterterrorism cooperation with Pakistan helped lead us to bin Laden and the compound where he was hiding,” the president said.

When contacted by GlobalPost about this latest information, the White House press office said all details about the operation have already been released.

White House spokesman Jay Carney on Wednesday said the United States’ relationship with Pakistan was “complicated,” but that it was important to maintain.

“The fight is not done, and we look forward to cooperating with Pakistan in the future,” he said at a White House press briefing. “As others have said, more terrorists have been killed on Pakistani soil than probably any other country. And the cooperation we’ve received from Pakistan has been very useful in that regard.”

The European Union on Thursday also came to the defense of Pakistan, calling the country an “important partner,” echoing similar statements from officials at NATO that were made on Wednesday.

Experts and analysts here in Islamabad said that the Pakistani government itself, which is concerned about appearing overly friendly with the United States and angering its citizens, is likely encouraging the United States to downplay Pakistan’s involvement in finding bin Laden and the eventual operation against him.

In fact, analysts said, the Pakistani government has long been trying to compose a storyline that it is actively working against the United States — an effort that is aimed at keeping the country’s population from rising up against the political leadership. Pakistanis have grown tired of U.S. involvement in its affairs in the last decade and ongoing drone attacks in its northern tribal belt that have killed numerous civilians.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Salman Bashir, for example, told reporters Thursday that the Pakistani military first learned about the operation when a U.S. helicopter crashed at the start of the attack.

“Pakistan’s civilian and military leadership does not want to be the center of hatred, not only within Pakistan … but also in the Arab world,” where it believes elements of the population still support bin Laden, said Najam Sethi, a political analyst in Pakistan.

But many here said this strategy could, in the end, hurt the country by making it appear more culpable than it actually is — a reality that is already beginning to take shape as the American media, and some members of Congress, asks why Pakistan hasn’t been more helpful.

In the wake of all of the criticism, some here are now calling on Pakistan’s leaders to be more forthcoming about their cooperation with the United States, especially in regard to Sunday’s raid.

“If Pakistan or U.S. officials do not publicize the cooperation between the two sides in the operation against bin Laden, Pakistan will be in serious trouble on the diplomatic front,” Sethi said.

Salim Safi, a security analyst based in Peshawar, said it seemed clear that there had been a significant amount of cooperation between the two sides — a reality that should be made public, even if Pakistani officials think it might hurt them politically in the short-term.

“The Pakistani government and the military establishment must not hide the facts from their own people,” he said. “They must come forward with the truth.”

Who was responsible for the birth of al-Qaeda, asks Gilani

ANITA JOSHUA

APPakistan Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani. File photo

The United States was reminded of its own role in the creation of the al-Qaeda by Pakistan Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani on Monday while picking up cudgels in Parliament for the armed forces and the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), which are under attack from all quarters for the presence of Osama bin Laden in the country and the covert American operation that killed him.

Stating that Pakistan alone could not be held accountable for “flawed policies and blunders of others,” Mr. Gilani provided a crash course in history: “I talk of a bygone era. However, it is perhaps necessary to remind everyone about that era, which has been so well documented, including in the CNN series on the Cold War showing video footage of high ranking U.S. officials exhorting the Afghans and the Mujahideen to wage jihad, to go back to their homes, to go back to their mosques, in the name of Islam and as a national duty…

“It’s necessary for us to remind the international community of the decade of the nineties, which saw the Arab volunteers who had joined the Jihad mutate into the al-Qaeda? Who was responsible for the birth of the al-Qaeda? Who was responsible for making the myth of Osama bin Laden?

“To find answers to today’s question, it is necessary to revisit the not-so-distant past. Collectively, we must acknowledge facts and see our faces in the mirror of history.”

Borrowing a quote from U.S. President Barack Obama’s May 2 announcement regarding Osama’s death, Mr. Gilani said his elimination was indeed “justice done,” but cautioned against declaration of victory. “The myth and legacy of Osama bin Laden remains to be demolished,” he added, elaborating that the anger and frustration of ordinary people over injustice, oppression and tyranny that Osama sought to harness to fuel the fire of terrorism in the world need to be addressed. “Otherwise, this rage will find new ways of expression.”

Battling the charge that Pakistan was complicit in Osama’s presence here, the Prime Minister said it was “disingenuous” for anyone to blame the country or its institutions, including the ISI and the armed forces, for being in cahoots with the al-Qaeda. Rejecting the charge of complicity, he asserted that detractors would not be allowed to succeed in “offloading their own shortcomings and errors of omission and commission in a blame game that stigmatises Pakistan.”

Russian diplomats attacked, insulted in Lviv

A wreath which Russian Consul General in Lviv Oleg Astakhov was to lay at the Lviv military cemetery was grabbed away and treaded to pieces.

Interfax-Ukraine

A wreath which Russian Consul General in Lviv Oleg Astakhov was to lay at the Lviv military cemetery was grabbed away and treaded to pieces as a Russian diplomatic delegation was on its way to the Hill of Glory memorial.

“The wreath I was to lay at the Hill of Glory memorial at the military cemetery was treaded into pieces,” the consul general said in an interview with the ZIK magazine.

“Russia and the whole of the sane world are celebrating Victory Day. All of these games on this day are an insult to the memory of those buried here, who sacrificed their lives to allow us to live in a normal society,” he said.

WWII veterans and activists of public organizations complained that assailants would tear off their orange-and-black memorial ribbons and insult them. Some women hid their orange-and-black ribbons in their pockets and produce them again past a police cordon at the Hill of Glory memorial.

Activists of the Svoboda nationalistic organization, who had gathered at the other side of the police cordon, chanted anti-Russian slogans.

Despite a court ban on mass rallies on Victory Day, large groups of opponents of Victory Day celebrations and the use of red banners marched along Lviv streets, a Channel Five correspondent reported. Clashes with police occurred at May 9 venues on Monday.

Channel Five also aired footage of Svoboda activists’ clashes with opponents, when a shot was fired at a nationalist with a pneumatic pistol.

Читайте об этом на www.kyivpost.ua

Read more: http://www.kyivpost.com/news/nation/detail/103945/#ixzz1LwmyQsOb

Svoboda Nationalists Riot At WWII Ceremony Honoring Soviet Dead

Lviv nationalists clash with police

Nationalists in Lviv clash with police during a ceremony commemorating the Soviet Union’s Red Army victory over Nazi Germany in World War II .

Interfax-Ukraine

Ukrainian nationalists in Lviv, western Ukraine, clashed with police on May 9 during a ceremony commemorating the victory of the Soviet Union, which they saw as oppressive and anti-Ukrainian, over Nazi Germany during World War II.

The incident occured as about 100 people, among them World War II veterans, gathered for a ceremony at the Hill of Glory memorial in Lviv jointly with members of the Russian Unity and Motherland parties, who have arrived in Lviv bringing along a 30-meter-high Banner of Victory.

Coordinator of the event, Serhiy Yukhin, told Interfax-Ukraine that the banner is made of two 15-meter parts and bears the signatures of WWII veterans from all parts of Ukraine.

The two parts were sown together in Lviv and handed over to local war veterans. Five WWII veterans were given vouchers to health resorts.

When the Banner of Victory was being handed over, ten nationalists broke the police barricade and ran to the scene of the ceremony. Police interfered, trying to keep them in their place.

Some activists of the Svoboda (Liberty) nationalistic organization offered fierce resistance to police, shaking the fence, put up around the Hill of Glory memorial. Scuffles erupted with police.

The speaker of the regional legislature, Oleh Pankevych, and leader of the Svoboda faction in the regional legislature Iryna Sekh were seen in the crowd.

American Zionist Govt. Slams Israeli Decision To Withhold PA Funds

[More evidence of growing American/Israeli split over Palestinian “Arab spring” psyop?]

U.S.: Israel’s decision to withhold PA funds ‘premature’

State department deputy spokesman Mark Toner says the U.S. is waiting to see how the Hamas-Fatah reconciliation deal will pan out before making decisions.

By Natasha Mozgovaya

The United States slammed Monday Israel’s decision to withhold Palestinian Authority funds saying “any decision following the Hamas-Fatah agreement is premature.”

U.S. State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner admitted that the Israelis “have their concerns,” but stressed that that the U.S. government’s position is that “we believe that we need to wait and see. We believe it’s premature to make any decisions. What’s important now is that the Palestinians ensure implementation in a way that advances the prospects of peace.”

	Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Khaled Mashal at a ceremony in Cairo, May 4, 2011.
	Photo by: AP

“We are looking to see what this reconciliation agreement looks like in practical terms, before we make any decisions about future assistance,” Toner said.

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said earlier Monday that for the first time since 2007, the PA is not able to pay salaries to official workers because of Israel’s decision to withhold funds.

The U.S. administration hinted again that the warnings of some members of Congress to cut the aid to the Palestinian Authority following their agreement with Hamas would not be constructive.

“We understand these concerns, and I would just say, as the new Palestinian government’s formed, we’ll assess it based on its policies and we’ll determine the implications for our assistance”, Toner said, adding that training the Palestinian police force was “worthwhile”, as “they are an effective force and they have made significant gains in providing security.

Last week, at the Senate hearing on confirmation of Dan Shapiro’s candidacy as the next U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Shapiro said that the Administration is following closely the implications of the reconciliation agreement.

“There are many details that are as yet unknown about this agreement”, he said, adding that “there are ambiguities in the language of it. There are deep uncertainties about its prospects for implementation. And so we’ll be following that very closely and staying in close touch with the Congress, and also maintaining, as we always do, very close consultations with our colleagues and our partners in the Israeli government to ensure that we have the closest possible common understanding of the meaning of these events.”

Shapiro called Hamas a “terrorist organization,” adding that Palestinian reconciliation is ultimately a desirable goal – if it takes place “on terms that support peace.”

Abbottabad Assault Force Authorized/Prepared To Kill Pakistanis

Bin Laden assault team was prepared to fight Pakistani forces

WASHINGTON — President Obama insisted that the assault force hunting down Osama bin Laden last week be large enough to fight its way out of Pakistan if confronted by hostile local police officers and troops, senior administration and military officials said yesterday.

In revealing additional details about planning for the mission, senior officials also said that two teams of specialists were on standby: one to bury bin Laden if he was killed, and a second composed of lawyers, interrogators, and translators in case he was captured alive. That team was set to meet aboard a Navy ship, most likely the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson in the North Arabian Sea.

Obama’s decision to increase the size of the force sent into Pakistan shows that he was willing to risk a military confrontation with a close ally in order to capture or kill the leader of Al Qaeda.

Such a fight would have set off an even larger breach with the Pakistanis than has taken place since officials in Islamabad learned that helicopters filled with members of a Navy SEALs team had flown into one of their cities and burst into a compound where bin Laden was hiding.

One senior Obama administration official, pressed on the rules of engagement for one of the riskiest clandestine operations attempted by the CIA and the military’s Joint Special Operations Command in many years, said: “Their instructions were to avoid any confrontation if at all possible. But if they had to return fire to get out, they were authorized to do it.’’

The planning also illustrates how little the administration trusted the Pakistanis as they set up their operation. They also rejected a proposal to bring the Pakistanis in on the mission.

Under the original plan, two assault helicopters were going to stay on the Afghanistan side of the border, waiting for a call if they were needed. But the aircraft would have been about 90 minutes away from the bin Laden compound.

About 10 days before the raid, Obama reviewed the plans and pressed his commanders as to whether they were bringing along enough forces to fight their way out if the Pakistanis arrived on the scene and attempted to interfere with the operation.

That resulted in the decision to send two more helicopters carrying additional troops. These followed the two lead Black Hawk helicopters that carried the actual assault team. Although there was no confrontation with the Pakistanis, one of those backup helicopters was ultimately brought in to the scene of the raid when a Black Hawk was damaged while making a hard landing.

“Some people may have assumed we could talk our way out a jam, but given our difficult relationship with Pakistan right now, the president did not want to leave anything to chance,’’ said one senior administration official, who like others would not be quoted by name in describing details of the secret mission. “He wanted extra forces if they were necessary.’’

With tensions between the United States and Pakistan escalating since the raid, US officials yesterday sought to tamp down the divisions and pointed to some encouraging developments.

A US official said that US investigators will soon be allowed to interview bin Laden’s three widows now being held by Pakistani authorities, a demand that Obama’s national security adviser, Tom Donilon, made on television talk shows Sunday.

US officials say the widows, as well as a review of the trove of documents and other data the SEALs team collected from the raid, could reveal important details, not only about bin Laden’s life and activities since fleeing into Pakistan from Afghanistan in 2001, but also information about Al Qaeda plots, personnel, and planning.

“We believe that it is very important to maintain the cooperative relationship with Pakistan precisely because it’s in our national security interest to do so,’’ said the White House spokesman, Jay Carney.

In an effort to help mend the latest rupture in relations, the CIA director, Leon E. Panetta, will meet soon with his counterpart, Lieutenant General Ahmad Shuja Pasha, head of the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, or ISI, “to discuss the way forward in the common fight against Al Qaeda,’’ a US official said.

© Copyright 2011 Globe Newspaper Company.

Radical Right-Wing American “Preachers” Inspiration for Ugandan Bill To Execute All Gays

[There is nothing more hypocritical than “fundamentalist” preachers (of any faith), who believe that they hold all knowledge in their tiny little craniums.  All of them, whether Christian-Zionist, “Islamic,” Jewish, Hindu, or any other, are convinced that God has sent them to punish “the unbelievers” (usually by death).  Their ability to sway the mindless mobs, who long for someone to think for them, is the only source of their deadly illegitimate “authority.  They are the wolves in sheep’s clothing, who lead the sheeple on bloody rampages in the alleged service of some higher cause.]

48 hours to stop Uganda’s anti-gay bill!

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Americans’ Role Seen in Uganda Anti-Gay Push

By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

KAMPALA, Uganda — Last March, three American evangelical Christians, whose teachings about “curing” homosexuals have been widely discredited in the United States, arrived here in Uganda’s capital to give a series of talks.

The theme of the event, according to Stephen Langa, its Ugandan organizer, was “the gay agenda — that whole hidden and dark agenda” — and the threat homosexuals posed to Bible-based values and the traditional African family.

For three days, according to participants and audio recordings, thousands of Ugandans, including police officers, teachers and national politicians, listened raptly to the Americans, who were presented as experts on homosexuality. The visitors discussed how to make gay people straight, how gay men often sodomized teenage boys and how “the gay movement is an evil institution” whose goal is “to defeat the marriage-based society and replace it with a culture of sexual promiscuity.”

Now the three Americans are finding themselves on the defensive, saying they had no intention of helping stoke the kind of anger that could lead to what came next: a bill to impose a death sentence for homosexual behavior.

One month after the conference, a previously unknown Ugandan politician, who boasts of having evangelical friends in the American government, introduced the Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009, which threatens to hang homosexuals, and, as a result, has put Uganda on a collision course with Western nations.

Donor countries, including the United States, are demanding that Uganda’s government drop the proposed law, saying it violates human rights, though Uganda’s minister of ethics and integrity (who previously tried to ban miniskirts) recently said, “Homosexuals can forget about human rights.”

The Ugandan government, facing the prospect of losing millions in foreign aid, is now indicating that it will back down, slightly, and change the death penalty provision to life in prison for some homosexuals. But the battle is far from over.

Instead, Uganda seems to have become a far-flung front line in the American culture wars, with American groups on both sides, the Christian right and gay activists, pouring in support and money as they get involved in the broader debate over homosexuality in Africa.

“It’s a fight for their lives,” said Mai Kiang, a director at the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, a New York-based group that has channeled nearly $75,000 to Ugandan gay rights activists and expects that amount to grow.

The three Americans who spoke at the conference — Scott Lively, a missionary who has written several books against homosexuality, including “7 Steps to Recruit-Proof Your Child”; Caleb Lee Brundidge, a self-described former gay man who leads “healing seminars”; and Don Schmierer, a board member of Exodus International, whose mission is “mobilizing the body of Christ to minister grace and truth to a world impacted by homosexuality” — are now trying to distance themselves from the bill.

“I feel duped,” Mr. Schmierer said, arguing that he had been invited to speak on “parenting skills” for families with gay children. He acknowledged telling audiences how homosexuals could be converted into heterosexuals, but he said he had no idea some Ugandans were contemplating the death penalty for homosexuality.

“That’s horrible, absolutely horrible,” he said. “Some of the nicest people I have ever met are gay people.”

Mr. Lively and Mr. Brundidge have made similar remarks in interviews or statements issued by their organizations. But the Ugandan organizers of the conference admit helping draft the bill, and Mr. Lively has acknowledged meeting with Ugandan lawmakers to discuss it. He even wrote on his blog in March that someone had likened their campaign to “a nuclear bomb against the gay agenda in Uganda.” Later, when confronted with criticism, Mr. Lively said he was very disappointed that the legislation was so harsh.

Human rights advocates in Uganda say the visit by the three Americans helped set in motion what could be a very dangerous cycle. Gay Ugandans already describe a world of beatings, blackmail, death threats like “Die Sodomite!” scrawled on their homes, constant harassment and even so-called correctional rape.

“Now we really have to go undercover,” said Stosh Mugisha, a gay rights activist who said she was pinned down in a guava orchard and raped by a farmhand who wanted to cure her of her attraction to girls. She said that she was impregnated and infected with H.I.V., but that her grandmother’s reaction was simply, “ ‘You are too stubborn.’ ”

Despite such attacks, many gay men and lesbians here said things had been getting better for them before the bill, at least enough to hold news conferences and publicly advocate for their rights. Now they worry that the bill could encourage lynchings. Already, mobs beat people to death for infractions as minor as stealing shoes.

“What these people have done is set the fire they can’t quench,” said the Rev. Kapya Kaoma, a Zambian who went undercover for six months to chronicle the relationship between the African anti-homosexual movement and American evangelicals.

Mr. Kaoma was at the conference and said that the three Americans “underestimated the homophobia in Uganda” and “what it means to Africans when you speak about a certain group trying to destroy their children and their families.”

“When you speak like that,” he said, “Africans will fight to the death.”

Uganda is an exceptionally lush, mostly rural country where conservative Christian groups wield enormous influence. This is, after all, the land of proposed virginity scholarships, songs about Jesus playing in the airport, “Uganda is Blessed” bumper stickers on Parliament office doors and a suggestion by the president’s wife that a virginity census could be a way to fight AIDS.

During the Bush administration, American officials praised Uganda’s family-values policies and steered millions of dollars into abstinence programs.

Uganda has also become a magnet for American evangelical groups. Some of the best known Christian personalities have recently passed through here, often bringing with them anti-homosexuality messages, including the Rev. Rick Warren, who visited in 2008 and has compared homosexuality to pedophilia. (Mr. Warren recently condemned the anti-homosexuality bill, seeking to correct what he called “lies and errors and false reports” that he played a role in it.)

Many Africans view homosexuality as an immoral Western import, and the continent is full of harsh homophobic laws. In northern Nigeria, gay men can face death by stoning. Beyond Africa, a handful of Muslim countries, like Iran and Yemen, also have the death penalty for homosexuals. But many Ugandans said they thought that was going too far. A few even spoke out in support of gay people.

“I can defend them,” said Haj Medih, a Muslim taxi driver with many homosexual customers. “But I fear the what? The police, the government. They can arrest you and put you in the safe house, and for me, I don’t have any lawyer who can help me.”