Obama's program of war

last SG · 2009-02-02T19:11:54+00:00

. They reduced it to zero. Now, under the US occupation, Afghanistan again supplies the world with 90% of its heroin. Something smells fishy here.Sure close...

jojobeach SG

yanwnnzzz.... don't you guys like keep up to date ?

Old gossips are boring ya know ?

Stevenson101 SG

Someone report you are a terrorist and they capture you......ha ha ha.......You think the US intel is that stupid. You have no idea the kind of technology that is deploy to locate these hardcore terrorist and to understand their operation.

So stop creating your own conclusion and do better research......don't just copy and paste some idiotic web site.

Heh, as if your information is any more reliable.

I have no issues with the technology deployed, i merely have issues with the people interpreting the information coming out of the technology.

They can bomb villages in Pakistan and proclaimed that terrorists are killed, it's not like there's going to be anyone verifying it.

freedomclub SG

Obama’s Torture Loopholes

by Prof. James Hill

Global Research, January 26, 2009

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=12041

On January 22, 2009, President Obama signed a number of executive orders purporting to end the Bush administration’s abusive practices in dealing with treatment of terrorism suspects. Before Americans get too elated, however, they should look carefully at the inhumane interrogation practices these orders may still permit.

When first announced, the new president’s executive orders seemed cause for celebration, prompting the American Civil Liberties Union to feature a link on its website encouraging visitors to email the president and “Send Him Thanks!”

The ACLU summarized the new orders:

President Obama . . . ordered the closure of the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay within a year and the halting of its military commissions; the end of the use of torture; the shuttering of secret prisons around the world; and a review of the detention of the only U.S. resident being held indefinitely as a so-called “enemy combatant” on American soil. The detainee, Ali al-Marri, is the American Civil Liberties Union’s client in a case pending before the Supreme Court.

Like many reacting to the president’s orders, ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero expressed unbridled enthusiasm:

These executive orders represent a giant step forward. Putting an end to Guantanamo, torture and secret prisons is a civil liberties trifecta, and President Obama should be highly commended for this bold and decisive action so early in his administration on an issue so critical to restoring an America we can be proud of again.[1]

Torture by US officials has long been illegal, but the president’s executive order entitled “Ensuring Lawful Interrogations” seems to clarify, to some extent, what activities are proscribed. Disappointingly, though, this order contains loopholes big enough to drive a FEMA camp train through them.

Loophole 1: Torture is prohibited only of persons detained in an “armed conflict.”

The executive order applies only to “armed conflicts,” not counterterrorism operations.

The order states in part:

Consistent with the requirements of the Federal torture statute, . . . the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, . . . the [United Nations] Convention Against Torture, [the Geneva Conventions] Common Article 3, and other laws regulating the treatment and interrogation of individuals detained in any armed conflict, such persons shall in all circumstances be treated humanely and shall not be subjected to violence to life and person (including murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment, and torture), nor to outrages upon personal dignity (including humiliating and degrading treatment), whenever such individuals are in the custody or under the effective control of an officer, employee, or other agent of the United States Government or detained within a facility owned, operated, or controlled by a department or agency of the United States [emphasis added].

This sounds salutary: America should not torture people detained in armed conflicts. But are such conflicts the only situations in which the US military, federal agencies, and private security companies can detain people today in the name of the war on terror?

Hardly. Many US and foreign citizens have been detained in counterterrorism operations, which another of Obama’s January 22 executive orders carefully differentiates from armed conflicts.

In that other executive order, entitled “Review of Detention Policy Options,” a special task force is commissioned to review procedures for detention suspects. This order clearly distinguishes between “armed conflicts” and “counterterrorism operations”:

The mission of the Special Task Force shall be to conduct a comprehensive review of the lawful options available to the Federal Government with respect to the apprehension, detention, trial, transfer, release, or other disposition of individuals captured or apprehended in connection with armed conflicts and counterterrorism operations, and to identify such options as are consistent with the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States and the interests of justice.

As the president has made this distinction, so should we.

To date, counterterrorism operations have resulted in hundreds of arrests of persons in America and abroad, having nothing whatever to do with any armed conflict. Does President Obama wish limits on what is done to these people when detained and interrogated? His executive order on torture is silent on the issue.

Moreover, we know that many Guantanamo detainees from Pakistan and Afghanistan were sold to US officials by bounty hunters paid up to $25,000 per detainee, regardless of innocence.[2] Are these persons to be considered “individuals detained in [an] armed conflict”? Or must they be arrested while fighting on the battlefield to fit this qualification? Put differently, are blameless, uneducated goat herders who were sold into detention by warlords and mercenaries exempted from the president’s clarified prohibition of torture, simply because they never stepped foot on a battlefield?

Another concern is the US military’s deployment in American cities, which began on October 1, 2008, according to the Army Times.[3] Perhaps this deployment is in preparation for social unrest in the event of an economic collapse. If martial law were declared in America , how would citizens be treated? What if they were detained in FEMA detention facilities? Could they be tortured under the umbrella of “counterterrorism operations” because that is different from “armed conflict”?

To Americans wishing to remain free of torture, a far greater threat than detention during armed conflict is that resulting from what the federal government labels as counterterrorism operations, conducted both on US soil and overseas. Unfortunately, President Obama has not yet clearly addressed torture in this category.

Loophole 2: Only the CIA must close detention centers.

President Obama has ordered the CIA to close detention centers, except those “used only to hold people on a short-term, transitory basis,” which can stay open indefinitely. Exactly how long a duration is “short-term” and “transitory” is unclear.

The executive order states:

The CIA shall close as expeditiously as possible any detention facilities that it currently operates and shall not operate any such detention facility in the future.

This sounds wonderful, but what about other federal agencies? Can the FBI, National Security Agency, Department of Homeland Security, and Defense Intelligence Agency maintain detention facilities where torture may occur? Can private military contractors like Blackwater do so? Under one interpretation of Obama’s executive order on torture, those facilities may still operate and even expand, provided the CIA doesn’t control them. Is it cynical to suspect this could be window dressing?

Loophole 3: Officials may still hide some detainees and abusive practices from the Red Cross.

On the Red Cross’s monitoring of detainees, the executive order reads:

All departments and agencies of the Federal Government shall provide the International Committee of the Red Cross with notification of, and timely access to, any individual detained in any armed conflict in the custody or under the effective control of an officer, employee, or other agent of the United States Government or detained within a facility owned, operated, or controlled by a department or agency of the United States Government, consistent with Department of Defense regulations and policies.

Here again, if a detainee is not one captured on the battlefield by US soldiers in an armed conflict, Obama’s order provides no guidance as to his fate. Government and private thugs may evidently still brutalize detainees obtained in counterterrorism operations and hide them from the Red Cross, unless and until the president issues a further executive order, or Congress passes a law, closing this loophole.

Loophole 4: Abuses not labeled “torture” may continue.

Obama’s executive order on torture does not label any particular practice “torture,” but instead requires that future interrogation practices conform to those outlined in the Army Field Manual. This may be in deference to Bush administration officials who authorized procedures like waterboarding while simultaneously declaring, “ America does not torture.” Debate in some circles will doubtless continue, therefore, over whether waterboarding; deprivation of food, water, and sleep; humiliation; and infliction of severe bodily pain and injury indeed constitute torture.

The executive order imparts the following limitations:

Effective immediately, an individual in the custody or under the effective control of an officer, employee, or other agent of the United States Government, or detained within a facility owned, operated, or controlled by a department or agency of the United States, in any armed conflict, shall not be subjected to any interrogation technique or approach, or any treatment related to interrogation, that is not authorized by and listed in Army Field Manual 2-22.3 (Manual). Interrogation techniques, approaches, and treatments described in the Manual shall be implemented strictly in accord with the principles, processes, conditions, and limitations the Manual prescribes [emphasis added].

By this language, waterboarding and other harsh interrogation procedures are prohibited by implication because they are not authorized by the Army Field Manual. But like other parts of Obama’s order, this prohibition apparently applies only to persons detained in an armed conflict. As discussed above, we are left to wonder whether detainees grabbed in counterterrorism operations can continue being tortured.

Conclusion

The loopholes in President Obama’s executive order on torture may permit cruel abuses of prisoners to continue, using a legal parlor trick. Labeling detainees the product of counterterrorism operations rather than of armed conflict, or holding detainees in detention facilities operated by entities other than the CIA, may allow government agents and private contractors conforming to the letter of the president’s order to continue practices most would consider torture. The president should close these loopholes or explain to Americans why he won’t.

James Hill is a partner in the law firm of McDermott Will & Emery, and a clinical assistant professor of radiology at the University of Southern California School of Medicine. The views expressed are solely his own.

[1] ACLU Press Release: President Obama Orders Guantánamo Closed And End To Torture; at
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/detention/38455prs20090122.html?s_src=RSS

[2] See: Andy Worthington: The Guantanamo Files: The Stories of the 759 Detainees in America 's Illegal Prison. Pluto Press, 2007; and: Jeffery Rosen: Voices of Victims (a review of My Guantanamo Diary: The Detainees and the Stories They Told Me, by Mahvish Rukhsana Khan). The New York Times, August 10, 2008, at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/10/books/review/Rosen-t.html?fta=y

[3] Gina Cavallaro: Brigade homeland tours start Oct. 1. Army Times, September 30, 2008, at
http//www.armytimes.com/news/2008/09/army_homeland_090708w

4sg SG

That article is half a year old. That order to close the prison in one year was signed last week.

sorry about the link.....

freedomclub SG

And during the Taliban, women had no rights, tehy were stoned for adultery, they had no means for education, they allowed honor killings, etc. etc. etc. etc.

You are fucking dense, if not incredibly stupid.

With regard to the water boarding, the incoming US Attorney General declared Water boarding as torture.

You are a fucking moron.

Change we can believe in.

By Greg Miller |Washington Bureau

January 31, 2009

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-renditions_31jan31,0,2998929.story

WASHINGTON — The CIA's secret prisons are being shuttered. Harsh interrogation techniques are off-limits. And Guantanamo Bay will eventually go back to being a wind-swept naval base on the southeastern corner of Cuba.

But even while dismantling these discredited programs, President Barack Obama left an equally controversial counterterrorism tool intact.

Under executive orders issued by Obama last week, the CIA still has authority to carry out what are known as renditions, or the secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the U.S.

Current and former U.S. intelligence officials said the rendition program is poised to play an expanded role because it is the main remaining mechanism—aside from Predator missile strikes—for taking suspected terrorists off the street.

The rendition program became a source of embarrassment for the CIA, and a target of international scorn, as details emerged in recent years of botched captures, mistaken identities and allegations that prisoners were turned over to countries where they were tortured.

The European Parliament condemned renditions as an "illegal instrument used by the United States." Prisoners swept up in the program have sued the CIA as well as a subsidiary of Boeing Corp., which is accused of working with the agency on dozens of rendition flights.

But the Obama administration appears to have determined that the rendition program was one component of the Bush administration's war on terrorism that it could not afford to discard.

The decision underscores the fact that the battle with Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups is far from over and that even if the U.S. is shutting down the prisons, it is not done taking prisoners.

"Obviously you need to preserve some tools, you still have to go after the bad guys," said an Obama administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity when discussing legal reasoning behind the decision. "The legal advisers working on this looked at rendition. It is controversial in some circles and kicked up a big storm in Europe. But if done within certain parameters, it is an acceptable practice."

One provision in one of Obama's orders appears to preserve the CIA's ability to detain and interrogate terrorism suspects as long as they are not held long-term. The little-noticed provision states that the instructions to close the CIA's secret prison sites "do not refer to facilities used only to hold people on a short-term, transitory basis."

Obama's decision to preserve the program did not draw major protests, even among human-rights groups. Leaders of such organizations said that reflects a sense, even among advocates, that the United States and other nations need certain tools to combat terrorism.

"Under limited circumstances, there is a legitimate place" for renditions, said Tom Malinowski, the Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. "What I heard loud and clear from the president's order was that they want to design a system that doesn't result in people being sent to foreign dungeons to be tortured."

In his executive order on lawful interrogations, Obama created a task force to re-examine renditions to make sure that they "do not result in the transfer of individuals to other nations to face torture" or otherwise circumvent human-rights laws and treaties.

Atobe SG

If Obama administration cannot close down the Guantanamo Bay Detention camp, it would be a real embarassment.

And now they are saying......
Detention camp at Guantánamo Bay won't close, but it won't be the same.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/13/america/scotus.php

For Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp to close, Obama needs the co-operation of the various countries whose citizens have volunteered to join Osama bin Ladin and his Al Qaeda to help the Talibans to subjugate Afghanistan.

Unfortunately, none of the various countries are prepared to receive their citizens who were captured as "non-military combatants".

With more then 200 over foreign citizens captured as "non-military combatants" during the sweep of the Talibans and Al Qaeda, where do you suggest that these captured foreign citizens be "housed" ?

They are not US citizens arrested as civil criminals and subjected to US Civil Laws - to be housed in civilian prisons for hardcore US criminals, and neither does the US Civil Laws applicable to those fighting as "non-military combatants".

This "state of limbo" is a result of the actions taken by Bush in response to the unprovoked attack by Osama bin Laden - on 9/11 - that saw more then 5000 civilian deaths from various nations - as a result of the destruction of the New York World Trade Center Twin Towers.

For Obama to succeed in closing down Guantanamo Bay Detention Center, the governments from other nations should accept the return of these detainees - and should not treat them any worst than what these detainees had experienced in the hands of the US Guards.

This is also a major concern for Obama's Government, as well as the US Congress who believed that some of the other Countries have prison systems that are known for prisoner abuses.

Atobe SG

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=12089

Within days of taking power, the Obama administration has made clear that it will escalate the war to subjugate the Afghan people, intensify US military strikes on targets inside Pakistan and continue the occupation of Iraq indefinitely. What is being prepared is a brutal escalation of US military violence in Afghanistan and a widening of the conflagration in the region.

Obama left a two-hour meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff yesterday pledging to ensure that the military received the "resources and the support" to wage the wars being conducted by the United States. He told journalists he would soon be announcing "some difficult decisions that we're going to have to make surrounding Iraq and Afghanistan."

The essence of those decisions was indicated on Tuesday in the testimony of Defense Secretary Robert Gates before the Senate and House armed services committees. Obama's appointment of Gates marked the new president's unambiguous repudiation of the campaign rhetoric that appealed to broad antiwar sentiment among the American people. Gates served the Bush administration in the same post for the past two years and directed the escalation of the Iraq war from early 2007 to early 2008.

Gates told the senators: "There is little doubt that our greatest military challenge right now is Afghanistan. As you know, the United States has focused more on Central Asia in recent months. President Obama has made it clear that the Afghanistan theatre should be our top overseas military priority." The war in Afghanistan, he added, would be "long and difficult." The short-term time frame he placed on the conflict was "five years"?at least until 2014. He said an increase in US casualties was "likely" as operations are stepped-up against the anti-occupation insurgency being waged by loyalists of the former Taliban regime and other Afghan Islamist movements.

Gates stressed that as the new administration escalates military action in Central Asia, it has no intention of withdrawing from Iraq. Warning that resistance could erupt again against US forces in Iraq, he said "there may be hard days ahead for our troops." Even if units designated as "combat" are pulled out roughly according to the 16-month schedule promised by Obama during the election, Gates emphasized that a sizeable force would remain and "we should still expect to be involved in Iraq on some level for many years to come."

He told the Senate committee that Obama will send 30,000 additional American troops to Afghanistan as soon as possible. The first of the four combat brigades requested last year by General David McKiernan, the commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, has already taken up positions in areas to the east of the Afghan capital, Kabul. The 3,500 troops, from the 10th Mountain Division, have begun operations in the provinces of Wardak and Logar.

Analysts are predicting that Obama will order the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade to deploy to Afghanistan by mid-spring. Another Marine brigade will follow by mid-summer. The final additional brigade will arrive before the end of the year.

The intensified fighting will not be confined to Afghanistan. The predominantly ethnic Pashtun Afghan insurgents have safe havens and derive support among the Pashtun population of Pakistan's Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (FATA). As a result, the US and NATO forces have been unable to prevent the Afghan resistance from launching daily attacks across entire swathes of southern Afghanistan and replenishing both its ranks and weapons. Large-scale US military strikes on the FATA and even more deeply into Pakistan are the logical outcome of Obama's determination to place Afghanistan under US control. It was "impossible," Gates declared, "to disaggregate Afghanistan and Pakistan, given the porous border between them." He left no doubt that the US military would continue to conduct air strikes inside Pakistan, regardless of the opposition of the Pakistani government and Pakistani people, on the pretext that the targets were linked to Al Qaeda.

The primary motive for the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan was not to fight terrorism, but to create a base for the assertion of US influence over the resource-rich former Soviet republics in Central Asia. During last year's presidential election, Obama served as the mouthpiece for factions of the American establishment that had concluded the preoccupation with Iraq had resulted in Central Asia coming too much under the political and economic sway of Russia and China.

The re-emphasis on Afghanistan is intended to reverse this trend. Under the guise of securing supply routes for the increased US military force, intense diplomacy is taking place to establish access rights and military bases in Central Asian states such as Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Currently, the bulk of US and NATO supplies to Afghanistan move through border passes in the FATA, where they are coming under increasing attack by insurgents. Following a NATO summit on Monday, the Russian government announced that it is prepared to allow its territory and air space to be used to transport US and NATO supplies into Afghanistan.

Gates's testimony also indicated a shift in the relations between the US and the puppet government it has installed in Kabul under President Hamid Karzai. Along with fighting "terrorism," the Bush administration justified the occupation of Afghanistan with constant references to bringing "democracy," "development" and "human rights" to the Afghan people.

Gates dismissed such claims on Obama's behalf, telling senators: "If we set ourselves the objective of establishing some sort of a Central Asia Valhalla over there, we will lose... because nobody in the world has that much time, patience or money, to be honest...."

A brutal real politik will define the Obama administration's policy in Afghanistan. Karzai's government is frequently derided in US foreign policy circles for its endemic corruption and its lack of popular support among the Afghan people. A more important reason for flagging US enthusiasm for its puppet Karzai is the latter's public criticisms of US air strikes that target and kill Afghan civilians. The Obama administration has every intention of escalating the bloodshed and will brook no interference from its client regime.

The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Obama may support a campaign to remove Karzai in the presidential election scheduled to be held in the country later this year. The alternative to attempts to create a strong central government is the Iraq "surge" model. The commander of US forces in Iraq, General David Petraeus?who now heads the US Central Command?authorized his officers in particular parts of Iraq to bribe insurgent leaders to change sides, in exchange for both money and a degree of local power.

In a similar fashion, sources close to the Obama administration told the Times that it "would work with provincial leaders as an alternative to the central government, and that it would leave economic development and nation-building to European allies, so that American forces could concentrate on the fight against insurgents."

The result of this policy could be greater tensions between the US and the European powers. During his testimony, Gates demanded that NATO member-states "step up to the plate" and provide more forces and resources for the war in Afghanistan.

Even with 30,000 extra American troops, the occupation force will still be severely under-manned. In the midst of the ongoing occupation of Iraq and an economic meltdown, however, Gates told the Senate that he was "skeptical" the US military could contribute "additional American force levels beyond what General McKiernan has already asked for."

Under Bush, NATO states, particularly Germany, France, Italy and Turkey, repeatedly rejected US requests that they dramatically increase their involvement in the Afghan conflict. They must now decide how to respond to the Obama White House.

A British Broadcasting Corporation correspondent commented on Tuesday: "If NATO allies falter now, the long-term implications in terms of separating the United States from Europe could be severe... The issue is emerging as a potential troubling one at the 60th anniversary summit [of NATO] to be held in early April."

Millions of Americans were channelled into voting for Obama and the Democratic Party by the illusion that they would implement a decisive shift away from the militarism and neo-colonial interventions that marked the Bush years. Instead, they face an administration that is just as determined as Bush's to use brute military force to secure the economic and strategic interests of American imperialism. Countless thousands of Afghan and Pakistani lives, and those of hundreds if not thousands more American troops, are to be sacrificed in the process.

This reality underscores not only the debased character of "democracy" in the United States, but the necessity for a break with the two parties of US imperialism and a fundamental political reorientation of the working class toward a socialist and internationalist program.

Your paranoid distortions and undiscerning propagation of false news will only abuse the intelligence of other readers who willingly support the cause of those subjugated peoples of Afghanistan.

"... the Obama administration has made clear that it will escalate the war to subjugate the Afghan people..."

Will the Obama administration escalate the war to subjugate the people of Afghanistan, or did he declared that he will escalate the war to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, and to destroy Al Qaeda as the source of terrrorism ?

Have you allowed yourself to be manipulated by the false propaganda, or are you simply undiscerning with what is printed and merely resort to the sensational loud statements to gain attention ?

Only eight years have passed, and already it memory has faded from the initial after shock and indignation of seeing the bastion of the civilised world being attacked - with more then 5000 civilians of different nationalities killed by the brazen and wanton attacks on the Twin Towers using civilian airliners as weapons of mass destruction.

Did Bush or Cheney schemed with Osama Bin Laden in the attack on the New York City WTC - so as to give each of them the opportunity to execute their private agendas ?

Did Bush and Cheney have that intelligence and foresight to reach that far in their strategic outlook to have US embedded in Central Asia as a dominant power ?

With the kind of strategic intelligence that both have displayed in their conduct of the Iraq War, and the bungled military strategy to wipe out Saddam Hussein without any Post-War strategy or even a withdrawal strategy - can Bush and Cheney possess that gift of long term strategic thinking that they have been credited with ?

It is amazing how quickly significant events fade with time, and new speculative twists come into play to take advantage of past events to embrazen new agendas - while the uninformed and the dull minded willingly accept these new explanations.

freedomclub SG

Your paranoid distortions and undiscerning propagation of false news will only abuse the intelligence of other readers who willingly support the cause of those subjugated peoples of Afghanistan.

"... the Obama administration has made clear that it will escalate the war to subjugate the Afghan people..."

Have you allowed yourself to be manipulated by the false propaganda, or are you simply undiscerning with what is printed and merely resort to the sensational loud statements to gain attention ?

Did Bush or Cheney schemed with Osama Bin Laden in the attack on the New York City WTC - so as to give each of them the opportunity to execute their private agendas ?

Did Bush and Cheney have that intelligence and foresight to reach that far in their strategic outlook to have US embedded in Central Asia as a dominant power ?

Is 8 years so long a time that people actually believe the lie that the Afghan invasion was a response to 9/11? If that was the case, why were the Afghan war plans already prepared even before 9/11 and US troops were already massing, ready to invade Afghanistan?

Bush may not SEEM to have the intelligence to think that far ahead, but Cheney's PNAC gang already outlined the American Century of domination over Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and Lebanon years before 9/11 in order to remodel the Middle-East. And guess what it needed? A "catalysing" event like a "new Pearl Habour", just 1 year before 9/11.

freedomclub SG

When the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, poppy production was zero

Which part of the info did you not understand. The poppy production was what fuel the Taliban economy....export thru Pakistan.

Oh I understand the information all right. Its just that you are prevented from doing the same by engineered mass opinions. Note the below article is from July 2001, 2 months before 9/11, and two years after the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan.

The unexpected success of the Taliban in Afghanistan in eradicating three-quarters of the world's crop of opium poppies in one season is leading experts to ask where production is likely to spring up next.

The director of the United Nations Drug Control Program, Pino Arlacchi, said there was no chance that opium from other sources would compensate this year for the loss of Afghan crops, and the prices of opium and heroin will rise substantially, with opium already worth five to seven times its usual price. His program helped convince the Taliban that opium is a disgrace to Islam.

The chairman of the Central Asia Institute at Johns Hopkins, Frederick Starr, said the West, especially Europe, had been inexplicably slow in recognizing developments in Afghanistan. ''The reduction is probably the most dramatic event in the history of illegal drug markets, not only in scale, but also in the fact that it was done domestically, without international assistance,'' he said. He added that Europe, where most Afghan heroin was consumed, had been ''stunningly dysfunctional'' in helping Afghan farmers who have sacrificed livelihoods and in moving to prevent new fields from springing up in other poor countries.

United Nations narcotics officials are looking at three regions that may be tempted -- Myanmar, Pakistan and Central Asia.

In an interview from the drug agency headquarters in Vienna, Mr. Arlacchi said he was skeptical about including Myanmar, formerly Burma, because Thailand and China have put tremendous pressure on the military junta there to control narcotics production. He said the ethnic groups in northern Myanmar who once were the largest poppy producers have instead turned to making chemical compounds. American experts agree that the greater problem now is synthetic drugs like ecstasy, which are becoming increasingly popular among young Asians.

In Pakistan, Mr. Arlacchi said, the government, working with the United Nations, has completed one of its most successful eradication programs over the last two decades. ''Production is down to almost zero in the last few years,'' he said.

Central Asia, he said, has the most potential for poppy production. The United Nations has been working there with limited funds to cut down trafficking in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. In the last four months, more than two tons of heroin have been seized on the Tajikistan-Afghanistan border.

''But even if in the long term this reduction of supply is a major success, it will be sustainable only with a parallel reduction in the demand in the industrial countries,'' Mr. Arlacchi said. Narcotics experts say they do not see matching efforts in rich countries to cut use.

''The prices of heroin and cocaine have been declining over 10 years,'' Mr. Arlacchi said. ''That trend will now be interrupted. Prices will increase without demand reduction, and there will be more powerful incentives to cultivators and traders.''

googoomuck SG

Let's assume that this whole allegation by Niaz Naik was true.

Then, Osama was dumb to have made a preemptive strike on 9/11, nullifying everything that Niaz had asserted.

The US had a valid reason to invade Afghanistan because Mullah Omar had refused to hand over Osama Bin Laden after the 9/11 attacks.

freedomclub SG

Let's assume that this whole allegation by Niaz Naik was true.

Then, Osama was dumb to have made a preemptive strike on 9/11, nullifying everything that Niaz had asserted.

The US had a valid reason to invade Afghanistan because Mullah Omar had refused to hand over Osama Bin Laden after the 9/11 attacks.

Thats assuming that Osama was behind the 9/11 attacks, which has already been shown to be full of holes large enough to crash a Boeing 757 through it, unlike the hole in the Pentagon.

Maybe you should go look at the failed oil pipeline talks between the US and the Taliban in early-mid 2001 before accepting the official story of 9/11 and the beginning of the phoney war of terror.

googoomuck SG

Thats assuming that Osama was behind the 9/11 attacks, which has already been shown to be full of holes large enough to crash a Boeing 757 through it, unlike the hole in the Pentagon.

Maybe you should go look at the failed oil pipeline talks between the US and the Taliban in early-mid 2001 before accepting the official story of 9/11 and the beginning of the phoney war of terror.

Osama behind the attacks was a confirmation, not an assumption.

Osama has had links with Ramzi Binalshibh, Mohammed Atta, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Wait. I know you are going to say that Al Jazeera is not a credible MSM. Am I right?

freedomclub SG

Osama behind the attacks was a confirmation, not an assumption.

Osama has had links with Ramzi Binalshibh, Mohammed Atta, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Wait. I know you are going to say that Al Jazeera is not a credible MSM. Am I right?

Yeah, and why did the the General Ahmed of Pakistan's ISI ordered $100,000 to be wired to Atta on September 10 and then have lunch the nexy day in D.C?

Aren't you forgetting the cozy relationship between the CIA and the ISI since the 1980s? Even today, the ISI agrees to make noise whenever the CIA bombs Pakistan but tacitly agrees to allow it to continue.

Nope, Osama's role is not even an assumption, but a false pretext to launch this imperialistic War of Terror.

The Truth behind 9/11: Who Is Osama Bin Laden?- http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20060910&articleId=3198

freedomclub SG

Imperialism You Can Believe In

http://www.infowars.com/defense-department-announces-civilian-expeditionary-workforce/

The Defense Department has established a "civilian expeditionary workforce" that will see American civilians trained and equipped to deploy overseas in support of worldwide military missions.

The move is seen by some as an initial step towards fulfilling president Obama’s promise to form a civilian national security force as powerful as the U.S. military.

The intent of the program “is to maximize the use of the civilian workforce to allow military personnel to be fully utilized for operational requirements,” according to a Defense Department report.

The program was officially implemented one week ago, on the 23rd January, when Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England signed Defense Department Directive 1404.10 (PDF), which provides a summation of the duties the workforce will undertake.

The directive, which is effective immediately, states that civilian employees of the DoD will be asked to sign agreements stating that they will deploy in support of military missions for up to two years if needed.

Workforce members, who are divided into different designations under the directive, will serve overseas in support of humanitarian, reconstruction and, if necessary, combat-support missions.

"If the employee does not wish to deploy, every effort will be made to reassign the employee to a nondeploying position." the DoD report states.

While the directive suggests that the DoD will at first seek volunteers to serve in the civilian workforce, section 4, subsection (e) paragraph (2) states:

Management retains the authority to direct and assign civilian employees, either voluntarily, involuntarily, or on an unexpected basis to accomplish the DoD mission.

In addition, the directive states that all workforce members will be subject to physical and psychological testing, both before and after deployment.

The directive refers several times to the civilian workforce as a component of the "Total Force", which it describes as "The organizations, units, and individuals that compromise the DoD resources for implementing the National Security Strategy." This "Total Force" includes active, reserve and retired military personnel in addition to DoD civilian employees.

Back in July 2008, Barack Obama, then the presidential front runner, called for a "civilian national security force" as powerful as the U.S. military.

"We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded," Obama told a Colorado Springs audience.

The comments that were ignored by the vast majority of the corporate media but were found to be troubling by some independent journalists who compared the idea to the formation of the Nazi Hitler Youth.

Fears of "youth brigades" or civilian stasi style units increased following Obama’s appointment of Rahm Emanuel to chief-of staff.

In his book, "The Plan: Big Ideas for America," Emanuel writes: "It’s time for a real Patriot Act that brings out the patriot in all of us. We propose universal civilian service for every young American. Under this plan, all Americans between the ages of 18 and 25 will be asked to serve their country by going through three months of basic training, civil defense preparation and community service."

The book also notes, "Some Republicans will squeal about individual freedom, ruling out any likelihood that they would let people opt out of universal citizen service."

Emanuel is also an enthusiastic supporter of the United States Public Service Academy Act, a lobbying group founded in 2006 in order to promote the foundation of an American public service academy modeled on the military academies - a youth corps whose students would be trained in "civilian internship in the armed forces".

Furthermore, in a rediscovered 2006 audio clip of an interview with Ben Smith of the New York Daily News, Emanuel outlined the agenda for compulsory military-style training, essentially a domestic draft, aimed at preparing Americans for a chemical or biological terrorist attack.

When controversy arose over the program last November, the use of the word "required" to describe the program was removed from Obama’s change.gov website and replaced with "community service" type terminology.

Though the civilian expeditionary workforce program is restricted to DoD employees, similar programs have already been established for public sector workers.

One such program has seen hundreds of police, firefighters, paramedics and utility workers recently trained and dispatched as "Terrorism Liaison Officers" in Colorado, Arizona and California to watch for "suspicious activity" which is later fed into a secret government database.

googoomuck SG

Yeah, and why did the the General Ahmed of Pakistan's ISI ordered $100,000 to be wired to Atta on September 10 and then have lunch the nexy day in D.C?

Nope, Osama's role is not even an assumption, but a false pretext to launch this imperialistic War of Terror.

The Truth behind 9/11: Who Is Osama Bin Laden?- http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20060910&articleId=3198

Al Jazeera is funded by an Arab Shiekh. Your posted articles are all full of conspiracy theories. You want to ignore the evidence, that's your choice.

I did not help fund Al Jazeera to broadcast news or conspiracy theories that I like to hear or read.

freedomclub SG

Al Jazeera is funded by an Arab Shiekh. Your posted articles are all full of conspiracy theories. You want to ignore the evidence, that's your choice.

I did not help fund Al Jazeera to broadcast news or conspiracy theories that I like to hear or read.

What issues that I posted is a "conspiracy theory"?

The way people talk I wonder whether there's a list of topics that no one is allowed to think about and instead just shut down whenever the term "conspiracy theory" is used.

Atobe SG

Was the US Forces massing before the 9/11 attack ?

Which country was hosting the US Forces in preparation for the attack ?

In the end, the Talibans and Al Qaeda was kicked out of Afghanistan with only less then 300 Special Forces working in collaboration with the Afghans nationalist insurgents fighting the Talebans into a deadlock for so many years.

Did the USA need an excuse - such as the 9/11 destruction of the WTC in New York City in 2001 - to invade Afghanistan led by the Talibans hosting Al Qaeda ?

Or was this attack the "last straw that broke the camel's back" ?

In a published article titled ‘How Clinton Let Al-Qaeda Go’ – Richard Shultz Jr. 19 Jan 2004. - it confirmed the sequence of events that led to the attack on Afghanistan.

From various sources, are you aware that prior to this 9/11 attack on the World Trade Centre in 2001, that saw its complete destruction - ‘Al Qaeda had attacked USA on numerous occassions before 9/11’ ?

1993 World Trade Center bombed by car bomb - ‘Al Qaeda mastermind in 1993 attack on WTC arrested in Rawalpindi, Pakistan’ in March 2003, subsequently confirmed to be the hand that murdered Reporter Daniel Pearl; also confirmed as the mastermind of a failed plot in 2002 to bomb the US Bank Tower in Los Angeles, the successful Bali nightclub bombings, and the failed bombings of American Airlines Flight 063., and the Millenium Plot.

1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia

1998 US Embassy bombed in Kenya

2000 USS Cole bombed in Yemen

Do you expect the USA - or any other government - to sit quietly and not make any plans to attack Afghanistan which was harboring Osama Bin Laden and his Al Qaeda ?

If you believe that Cheney had such an ambitious plan, can you also accept LKY's plans to develop Malaysia into his dream fiefdom ?

Unfortunately, with governments that are exposed to the politics and democratic processes - such personal ambitions can hardly see fulfillment.

If Cheney - in the US poltical environment - had the powers of LKY in Singapore, he may yet succeed in realising his ambitions of a global reach.

You are a joke in perpetuating the propaganda in support of radical Islam, and do a disservice to the plights of the ordinary people in the Middle-east - who continue to suffer under the archaic laws and corruption of oil monies that perpetuate the greasy hands of those in power.

Arapahoe SG

of all the references you actually pick Pakistan.......u make me laugh....these were the output before Soviet Invasion.........For years Tribes along Pakistan benefited from brokerage of drug trades. these are their source of income.

Foreign Area Studies
The American University
Edited by Richard F. Nyrop and Donald M. Seekins
Research completed
January 1986

All sorts of Western consumer goods were illegally brought into Afghanistan from Pakistan, and they kept the bazaars of Kabul well supplied. The most important item smuggled out of Afghanistan into Pakistan was opium. The importance of the Afghan opium crop increased in the 1970s. Before the war the Afghan opium was thought to have been grown in half the country's provinces, and with prices ranging up to US$1 00 per kilogram, it paid far better than any other cash crop. Production before the outbreak of the war was estimated at about 250 tons annually. Most opium cultivation was in the Pushtun areas of eastern Afghanistan, in Badakhshan, Nangarhar, and Paktia provinces. Every spring, poppy fields bloomed in profusion throughout the region, destined for markets in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. Drug trafficking was thought to be worth between US$20 and US$100 million annually before the war. The other important items smuggled into Pakistan were lapis lazuli and lumber. Livestock was sold at a much higher price in Iran than in Afghanistan, and animals, therefore, constituted a major item smuggled into Iran, as was opium.

Heroin from Afghanistan provided the Taliban with $8 billion dollars in 1999, according to

Rachel Ehrenfeld, in her book, Funding Evil; How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop It.

She writes, “The Taliban government, together with al-Qaeda, had taxed the poppy growers and

producers of opium base and heroin while al-Qaeda provided the growers with protection from

warlords and other bandits who would otherwise have stolen their crop.”

You Got Con......by Mohammed Omar......500 metric tons stashed in the caves......

In fact, according to Ehrenfeld, the Taliban and al-Qaeda stashed 500 metric tons of

heroin in caves in the Afghan mountains. During 2000, although poppy cultivation had been

banned, there was only a ten percent decrease in opium production

googoomuck SG

Isn't better to discuss what these paradise seekers have contributed to mankind, besides bombing?

freedomclub SG

Was the US Forces massing before the 9/11 attack ?

Which country was hosting the US Forces in preparation for the attack ?

Did the USA need an excuse - such as the 9/11 destruction of the WTC in New York City in 2001 - to invade Afghanistan led by the Talibans hosting Al Qaeda ?

Or was this attack the "last straw that broke the camel's back" ?

In a published article titled ‘How Clinton Let Al-Qaeda Go’ – Richard Shultz Jr. 19 Jan 2004. - it confirmed the sequence of events that led to the attack on Afghanistan.

1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia

1998 US Embassy bombed in Kenya

2000 USS Cole bombed in Yemen

Do you expect the USA - or any other government - to sit quietly and not make any plans to attack Afghanistan which was harboring Osama Bin Laden and his Al Qaeda ?

If you believe that Cheney had such an ambitious plan, can you also accept LKY's plans to develop Malaysia into his dream fiefdom ?

Unfortunately, with governments that are exposed to the politics and democratic processes - such personal ambitions can hardly see fulfillment.

If Cheney - in the US poltical environment - had the powers of LKY in Singapore, he may yet succeed in realising his ambitions of a global reach.

"Insider accounts published in the British, French and Indian media have revealed that US officials threatened war against Afghanistan during the summer of 2001. These reports include the prediction, made in July, that “if the military action went ahead, it would take place before the snows started falling in Afghanistan, by the middle of October at the latest.” The Bush administration began its bombing strikes on the hapless, poverty-stricken country October 7, and ground attacks by US Special Forces began October 19.

It is not an accident that these revelations have appeared overseas, rather than in the US. The ruling classes in these countries have their own economic and political interests to look after, which do not coincide, and in some cases directly clash, with the drive by the American ruling elite to seize control of oil-rich territory in Central Asia.

....

The pundits for the American television networks and major daily newspapers celebrate the rapid military defeat of the Taliban regime as an unexpected stroke of good fortune. They distract public attention from the conclusion that any serious observer would be compelled to draw from the events of the past two weeks: that the speedy victory of the US-backed forces reveals careful planning and preparation by the American military, which must have begun well before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

...

This is only one of countless lies emanating from the Pentagon and White House about the war against Afghanistan. The truth is that the US intervention was planned in detail and carefully prepared long before the terrorist attacks provided the pretext for setting it in motion. If history had skipped over September 11, and the events of that day had never happened, it is very likely that the United States would have gone to war in Afghanistan anyway, and on much the same schedule.

....

“Mr. Naik was told that Washington would launch its operation from bases in Tajikistan, where American advisers were already in place.

“He was told that Uzbekistan would also participate in the operation and that 17,000 Russian troops were on standby.

“Mr. Naik was told that if the military action went ahead it would take place before the snows started falling in Afghanistan, by the middle of October at the latest.”

Four days later, on September 22, the Guardian newspaper confirmed this account. The warnings to Afghanistan came out of a four-day meeting of senior US, Russian, Iranian and Pakistani officials at a hotel in Berlin in mid-July, the third in a series of back-channel conferences dubbed “brainstorming on Afghanistan.”

...

Further light on secret contacts between the Bush administration and the Taliban regime is shed by a book released November 15 in France, entitled Bin Laden, the Forbidden Truth, written by Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie. Brisard is a former French secret service agent, author of a previous report on bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network, and former director of strategy for the French corporation Vivendi, while Dasquie is an investigative journalist.

The two French authors write that the Bush administration was willing to accept the Taliban regime, despite the charges of sponsoring terrorism, if it cooperated with plans for the development of the oil resources of Central Asia.

Until August, they claim, the US government saw the Taliban “as a source of stability in Central Asia that would enable the construction of an oil pipeline across Central Asia.” It was only when the Taliban refused to accept US conditions that “this rationale of energy security changed into a military one.”

By way of corroboration, one should note the curious fact that neither the Clinton administration nor the Bush administration ever placed Afghanistan on the official State Department list of states charged with sponsoring terrorism, despite the acknowledged presence of Osama bin Laden as a guest of the Taliban regime. Such a designation would have made it impossible for an American oil or construction company to sign a deal with Kabul for a pipeline to the Central Asian oil and gas fields.

Talks between the Bush administration and the Taliban began in February 2001, shortly after Bush’s inauguration. A Taliban emissary arrived in Washington in March with presents for the new chief executive, including an expensive Afghan carpet. But the talks themselves were less than cordial. Brisard said, “At one moment during the negotiations, the US representatives told the Taliban, ‘either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs’.”

...

This account of the preparations for war against Afghanistan brings us to September 11 itself. The terrorist attack that destroyed the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon was an important link in the chain of causality that produced the US attack on Afghanistan. The US government had planned the war well in advance, but the shock of September 11 made it politically feasible, by stupefying public opinion at home and giving Washington essential leverage on reluctant allies abroad.

...

In the immediate aftermath of September 11, there were press reports—again, largely overseas—that US intelligence agencies had received specific warnings about large-scale terrorist attacks, including the use of hijacked airplanes. It is quite possible that a decision was made at the highest levels of the American state to allow such an attack to proceed, perhaps without imagining the actual scale of the damage, in order to provide the necessary spark for war in Afghanistan.

...

This is not to say that the American government deliberately planned every detail of the terrorist attacks or anticipated that nearly 5,000 people would be killed. But the least likely explanation of September 11 is the official one: that dozens of Islamic fundamentalists, many with known ties to Osama bin Laden, were able to carry out a wide-ranging conspiracy on three continents, targeting the most prominent symbols of American power, without any US intelligence agency having the slightest idea of what they were doing."

- US planned war in Afghanistan long before September 11

"We now know that a blueprint for the creation of a global Pax Americana was drawn up for Dick Cheney (now vice-president), Donald Rumsfeld (defence secretary), Paul Wolfowitz (Rumsfeld's deputy), Jeb Bush (George Bush's younger brother) and Lewis Libby (Cheney's chief of staff). The document, entitled Rebuilding America's Defences, was written in September 2000 by the neoconservative think tank, Project for the New American Century (PNAC).

The plan shows Bush's cabinet intended to take military control of the Gulf region whether or not Saddam Hussein was in power. It says "while the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein."

...

Fifteen of the 9/11 hijackers obtained their visas in Saudi Arabia. Michael Springman, the former head of the American visa bureau in Jeddah, has stated that since 1987 the CIA had been illicitly issuing visas to unqualified applicants from the Middle East and bringing them to the US for training in terrorism for the Afghan war in collaboration with Bin Laden (BBC, November 6 2001). It seems this operation continued after the Afghan war for other purposes. It is also reported that five of the hijackers received training at secure US military installations in the 1990s (Newsweek, September 15 2001).

...

The catalogue of evidence does, however, fall into place when set against the PNAC blueprint. From this it seems that the so-called "war on terrorism" is being used largely as bogus cover for achieving wider US strategic geopolitical objectives. Indeed Tony Blair himself hinted at this when he said to the Commons liaison committee: "To be truthful about it, there was no way we could have got the public consent to have suddenly launched a campaign on Afghanistan but for what happened on September 11" (Times, July 17 2002). Similarly Rumsfeld was so determined to obtain a rationale for an attack on Iraq that on 10 separate occasions he asked the CIA to find evidence linking Iraq to 9/11; the CIA repeatedly came back empty-handed (Time Magazine, May 13 2002).

In fact, 9/11 offered an extremely convenient pretext to put the PNAC plan into action. The evidence again is quite clear that plans for military action against Afghanistan and Iraq were in hand well before 9/11. A report prepared for the US government from the Baker Institute of Public Policy stated in April 2001 that "the US remains a prisoner of its energy dilemma. Iraq remains a destabilising influence to... the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East". Submitted to Vice-President Cheney's energy task group, the report recommended that because this was an unacceptable risk to the US, "military intervention" was necessary (Sunday Herald, October 6 2002).

...

The conclusion of all this analysis must surely be that the "global war on terrorism" has the hallmarks of a political myth propagated to pave the way for a wholly different agenda - the US goal of world hegemony, built around securing by force command over the oil supplies required to drive the whole project. Is collusion in this myth and junior participation in this project really a proper aspiration for British foreign policy? If there was ever need to justify a more objective British stance, driven by our own independent goals, this whole depressing saga surely provides all the evidence needed for a radical change of course."

- This war on terrorism is bogus

Add to that the close ties between the Bushes and Bin Laden, in fact Bush flew the Bin Laden family out of the US without even allowing the FBI to interview them and Bin Laden's CIA connection during the Afghan-Soviet war- even meeting up with the CIA in July 2001.

As for the 1993 WTC bombings, the NYT has already reported that Emad Salem, the ex-Egyptian intelligence officer who directed the bombers was an FBI informant who was supplied with explosives and instructions by the FBI itself.

Really, supporting radical Islam...that's a first.

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