Showing posts with label war on terror. Show all posts
Showing posts with label war on terror. Show all posts

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Peter King is bigoted and ineffective

Peter King's Islamic radicalization hearings against Muslims is meaningless and ineffective. He leaves out discussion of the United States long history of collaborating with Jihadis, propping up dictators and toppling democratic regimes (like in Iran in 1953). Robert Dreyfuss, author of Devils Game, discusses history of US and Middle East.

Dreyfuss' book is just the tip of the iceberg. How many people are aware that the United States spent millions of dollars on violent, extremist textbooks that were given to Afghan Children? See From U.S., the ABC's of Jihad in The Washington Post (Saturday, March 23, 2002; Page A01)
The United States funded and supported Islamic extremists during the Afghan-Russian War in order to give the Soviet Union its "Vietnam." The US could have supported pro-democracy Afghan groups, but instead chose the most brutal extremists from around the world to create death and destruction in Afghanistan.

While people accuses CAIR of supporting Hamas, people forget how Israel allowed Hamas to flourish as a rival to the secular Palestinian Nationalist movement. See "How Israel and the United States Helped to Bolster Hamas" from the Democracy Now program for more about this issue.

So basically, while the United States preaches human rights and democracy, it supports kings, dictators and extremists who do its bidding. And just so that we can live comfortably, Muslims are supposed to accept and be happy about being oppressed and killed by their leaders (that we armed and supported).

I'd like to see people put their money where their mouth is and demand USA stop accepting billions of dollars in investment money from the Saudis.

There are 9/11 victims families that are demanding a reopening of the 9/11 investigation. But Peter King is ignoring them http://rememberbuilding7.org/ King chooses to place all the blame on voiceless and powerless Muslims because it is the easy and cowardly thing to do.

Peter King thinks that it was OK to support Irish terrorists because the terrorist acts did not occur in the United States. How does that look to the world that our elected politicians have double standards. What does Britain, an ally on the war on terror, think of our government supporting people who commit terrorists in their country. Peter King should be made to step down as head of House Homeland Security Committee.

      9/11-Israeli connection

      This information has been on the internet since after 9/11. While people will bring up the cheering Palestinians on 9/11, people are in denial (even those on the political left) of the Israelis' action, in New Jersey, on 9/11



      You won't be seeing our "brave" Peter King, Chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, investigating this.

      Here is a report from Fox News, a source you'd least expect to discuss this issue, on the 9/11-Israeli connection

      Sunday, December 06, 2009

      Commission Chairman Thomas Kean: 9/11 Commission Was Set Up To Fail

      Gold9472 posted this video on youtube. He writes:

      This is a very brief clip from a question and answer session Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton gave at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. on 9/11/2006. As representatives of the family members, and family members themselves called for a new investigation right across the hall.



      On the video, Kean says
      Lee and I write in our book [Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission] that we think Commission was set up to fail because we had not enough money, we didn’t have enough time, we had been appointed by the most partisan people in Washington: The leaders of the House and Senate


      Mainstream media and politicians spends more time questioning White house party crashers, then 9/11 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/04/us/politics/04party.html

      Here is website that provides a lot of information on worldwide 9/11 truth movement http://world911truth.org/

      Monday, July 07, 2008

      From the U.S., the ABC of Jihad

      It seems its okay to teach children hate and violence when it serves the United States interest.

      From the U.S., the ABC of Jihad
      By Joe Stephens and David B. Ottaway
      Washington Post Staff Writers
      Saturday, March 23, 2002; Page A01
      From http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A5339-2002Mar22?language=printer


      In the twilight of the Cold War, the United States spent millions of dollars to supply Afghan schoolchildren with textbooks filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings, part of covert attempts to spur resistance to the Soviet occupation.
      The primers, which were filled with talk of jihad and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, have served since then as the Afghan school system's core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the American-produced books, though the radical movement scratched out human faces in keeping with its strict fundamentalist code.
      As Afghan schools reopen today, the United States is back in the business of providing schoolbooks. But now it is wrestling with the unintended consequences of its successful strategy of stirring Islamic fervor to fight communism. What seemed like a good idea in the context of the Cold War is being criticized by humanitarian workers as a crude tool that steeped a generation in violence.
      Last month, a U.S. foreign aid official said, workers launched a "scrubbing" operation in neighboring Pakistan to purge from the books all references to rifles and killing. Many of the 4 million texts being trucked into Afghanistan, and millions more on the way, still feature Koranic verses and teach Muslim tenets.


      Look at this hilarious part of the article where it says,



      A 1991 federal appeals court ruling against AID's former director established that taxpayers' funds may not pay for religious instruction overseas, said Herman Schwartz, a constitutional law expert at American University, who litigated the case for the American Civil Liberties Union.
      Ayesha Khan, legal director of the nonprofit Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said the White House has "not a legal leg to stand on" in distributing the books.
      "Taxpayer dollars cannot be used to supply materials that are religious," she said.


      The American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State were concerned about money being spent on religious books but they were not too concerned about the millions of Afghans killed or disabled by a war that was instigated by the U.S. so that the Soviet Union would get its “Vietnam.” This is why the mainstream political left is no better than the political right. Neither is conscience enough to recognize the great suffering of others. The United States recruited and trained Muslim extremists to fight its proxy war against the Russians. (See http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BRZ110A.html ) With the defeat of the Russians came the collapse of the Soviet Union, making the United States the number one superpower in the world, but the U.S. did nothing to help reconstruct Afghanistan

      China Inspired Interrogations at Guantánamo

      By SCOTT SHANE
      Published: July 2, 2008

      WASHINGTON — The military trainers who came to Guantánamo Bay in December 2002 based an entire interrogation class on a chart showing the effects of “coercive management techniques” for possible use on prisoners, including “sleep deprivation,” “prolonged constraint,” and “exposure.”

      What the trainers did not say, and may not have known, was that their chart had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners.

      The recycled chart is the latest and most vivid evidence of the way Communist interrogation methods that the United States long described as torture became the basis for interrogations both by the military at the base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and by the Central Intelligence Agency.

      rest of article at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/02/us/02detain.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

      Saturday, April 26, 2008

      Thanks for Nothing Halliburton

      This video shows how Halliburton overcharges for everything, but the soldiers are living under poor conditions. If this is how they are treating Americans, image how they are treating the Iraqis. Is there any wonder why there are Iraqis still fighting the Americans?



      This is from the film Iraq for Sale

      Friday, March 21, 2008

      The US is arming competing militias in Iraq

      This is discussed in an interview with Iraqi-American Professor Ayad Al-Qazzaz, done by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez of Democracy Now!

      AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to have you with us. Your thoughts, as we enter the sixth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq?

      AYAD AL-QAZZAZ: I am very, very devastated about what is happening to Iraq. You see, I immigrated to this country in 1963, and I adopted this country as my own new country. But I feel very, very much torn about what’s happening in my country of origin, devastated, that country, on all levels—economic, educational, health. And the infrastructure has been destroyed. The families have been displaced. More than four-and-a-half million Iraqis have left the country, and on and on and on. So I feel terrible about what’s really going on.

      JUAN GONZALEZ: And when you hear President Bush and other supporters of the administration’s policies talking about how the surge is working, how the US is now winning the war in Iraq, what is your response?

      AYAD AL-QAZZAZ: You know, one of the most devastating things is to hear the President keep lying and lying about really what’s going on in Iraq. He lied about the causes of the war, he lied about what’s going on right now in Iraq, and he’s lying about the surge.
      Let’s talk about the surge. The success is nothing but a camouflage, nothing but a mirage. Baghdad, for example, was a mixed city, where Shia Muslim, Sunni Muslim and Kurdish, they lived together. And I give you an example of that. My family, I come from a family, my mother was Kurdish, my ex-wife happened to be a Christian Catholic from Baghdad, my brother married to a Shia Muslim, my sister married to a Shia Muslim. And right now, the ethnic cleansing is completely—has been completed in Iraq as a result of the surge in this year. Today, if you go and visit Baghdad, you see a few Sunni communities surrounded by walls or concrete blocks or many, many checks. They try to protect themselves from the other communities in that city. Baghdad, before the invasion, was 65 percent Sunni Muslim. Today, they are 75 [percent] Muslim Shia in Baghdad.

      The second point about the surge—I already told you about four-and-a-half million Iraqis have been displaced—two-and-a-half million left the country, and two [million] others are displaced within their own country. And the only reason why no more people are leaving the country, because both Syria and Jordan practically closed their border to the Iraqi refugees.

      And the third thing is that the US established a Sunni militia in the Anbar area and other places, and the purpose of that militia is basically to protect the American Army from the resistance movement. So, in a sense, they are doing the dirty work for the Americans in that neighborhood. The US, when they invaded Iraq, they had many, many objectives to achieve, and one of that objective is to divide the country into semi- three independent states, and these three semi-independent states will fight with each other about resources, about territory, and then they will ask the Americans to establish bases in their own respective territories.

      Read rest of interview here http://www.democracynow.org/2008/3/20/iraqi_american_reflects_on_five_years

      Monday, January 14, 2008

      Israel to get "smarter" U.S.-made bombs than Saudis

      Sun Jan 13, 2008 9:10am EST

      By Dan Williams

      JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The United States has agreed in principle to provide Israel with better "smart bombs" than those it plans to sell Saudi Arabia under a regional defense package, senior Israeli security sources said on Sunday.

      Keen to bolster Middle East allies against an ascendant Iran, the Bush administration last year proposed supplying Gulf Arab states with some $20 billion in new weapons, including Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) bomb kits for the Saudis.

      The plan has angered Israel's backers in Washington, who say the JDAMs, which give satellite guidance for bombs, may one day be used against the Jewish state or at least blunt its power to deter potential foes. Israel has had JDAMs since 1990 and has used them extensively in a 2006 offensive in Lebanon.

      Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government dropped its objections to the proposed Saudi deal in July after securing U.S. military aid grants worth $30 billion over the next decade.

      Rest of article at http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSL1339881820080113

      Thursday, January 10, 2008

      Human Rights Organizations ignore the elephant in the room

      Organizations like the ACLU (American Civil Liberty Union), Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and many activists on the political left spend all day and night talking about the human rights of the Guantanamo Bay prisoners and the need for fair trials. They constantly complain that President Bush and his administration lie and are detaining prisoners without any evidence of criminal activity. At the same time, when it comes to the 9/11 attack, these organizations and activists believe 100% what President Bush and his administration claim. So millions have been killed in the "war on terror," millions more have been displaced and these human rights activists have nothing to say about the event that triggered these human rights atrocities.
      Ironically, the FBI’s webpage on Usama Ben Laden makes no mention of the 9/11 attack. See http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/terrorists/terbinladen.htm
      Why wouldn’t an attack which killed 3,000 people be specifically mentioned?
      Journalist Ed Haas’ investigates this,
      On June 5, 2006, the Muckraker Report contacted the FBI Headquarters, (202) 324-3000, to learn why Bin Laden’s Most Wanted poster did not indicate that Usama was also wanted in connection with 9/11. The Muckraker Report spoke with Rex Tomb, Chief of Investigative Publicity for the FBI. When asked why there is no mention of 9/11 on Bin Laden’s Most Wanted web page, Tomb said, “The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Usama Bin Laden’s Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11.”

      See complete article at http://www.teamliberty.net/id267.html
      Here is a film of a newsreport that asks the question why has Osams Ben Laden not been indicted for 9/11.

      There is a growing grass roots movement questioning the official 9/11 “investigation.” Many of them are non-Muslims.
      See http://www.911truth.org/
      and http://911proof.com/

      Monday, December 24, 2007

      Bush and Cheney are only fooling themselves

      But people are too apathetic to speak up or do anything about their lies, that includes our elected officials and the mainstream media.

      Click cartoon to see larger image
      cartoon from http://www.time.com/time/cartoonsoftheweek/0,29489,1692684_1500285,00.html

      Sunday, December 23, 2007

      Michael Moore is a Fraud



      Here is an excellent analysis from Alex Jones that exposes how Michael Moore has left out so much important information from his film Fahrenheit 911. For some reason many on the political left aren’t concerned to criticize Moore’s poorly made film.

      Friday, November 23, 2007

      Ignoring Israelis' presence in Iraq

      The mainstream media claims Iran is fueling the violence in Iraq. On this politically left website (http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/112207C.shtml) there is an op-ed peice from The New York Times about Saudi and Libyan fighters in Iraq. How come there isn't as much discussion of Israel's role in fueling the violence in Iraq?
      Israel in Iraq: Evidence Mounts
      by Jon Elmer
      The NewStandard

      Further evidence of the presence of Israeli operatives in Iraq arose this weekend when the general formerly in charge of the U.S.-run Iraqi prison system, herself considered partly responsible for torture at Abu Ghraib and other prisons under her command, told the BBC that she met an Israeli interrogator working in a U.S.-run "intelligence center" in Baghdad. Brigadier General Janet Karpinski told BBC Radio in an interview on Saturday that she met with a man who claimed to be Israeli and that he "did some of the interrogation" at the facility.
      .
      .
      .
      A top US military official quoted in the Washington Post on Sunday denied claims of Israeli presence in Iraq, calling the story an "urban legend."

      Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom similarly dismissed Gen. Karpinski's claims as "completely baseless," telling Israel's Army Radio: "We are not involved in any way in Iraq. We are not involved in training or in interrogations, or in anything else. The whole claim is preposterous."

      The Foreign Minister's assertion is contradicted by significant documentation of Israeli-American "strategic cooperation" with regard to intelligence sharing and training in Iraq.

      A December article in the Guardian described how Israeli advisers are involved in training U.S. special operations troops in counter-insurgency tactics to be used in Iraq. The operations being trained are said to include the use of assassination against resistance leaders. Quoting US intelligence and military sources, Guardian writer Julian Borger reported that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) sent urban warfare specialists to Fort Bragg in North Carolina, the home of U.S. Army Special Forces.

      On that same day, the Associated Press ran a story under the headline "U.S. employs Israeli tactics in Iraq," in which American and Israeli officials publicly noted "high-level meetings" and "strategic cooperation" between the two countries on the subject of operations in Iraq.
      from http://www.antiwar.com/orig/elmer.php?articleid=2959

      Also see
        Israel trains US assassination squads in Iraq

      by Julian Borger (Tuesday December 9, 2003) at http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1102940,00.html

      Here is a video of a news report about the Mossad in Iraq


      What about a discussion of Americans and Brits who are fueling the violence in Iraq? See http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20051015&articleId=1089

      Saturday, October 20, 2007

      Mass Murder in the Horn of Africa

      By a US ally, of course …

      Why is the U.S. subsidizing and supporting murder, rape, and systematic ethnic cleansing in the Horn of Africa? The reason: it's all part of our strategy for "victory" in the "war on terrorism."

      The village of Kamuda – a remote outpost in the Ogaden region of eastern Ethiopia, where the majority are Muslims and ethnically Somali – had some unexpected visitors last June, when a platoon of Ethiopian soldiers showed up, announcing their arrival by shooting their rifles into the air – and demanding to know why the villagers had been providing food and safe haven to rebels from the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF). With no satisfactory answer forthcoming, the soldiers took action: they picked out seven young ladies, between the ages of 15 and 18, and dragged them off into the bush.

      Three were later found hanging from trees, beaten to death. The rest simply disappeared.
      (Complete article by Justin Raimondo at http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=11778 )

      Saturday, September 29, 2007

      Saturday, September 22, 2007

      Where was Osama Ben Laden on Sept 11, 2001?

      The fact of the matter is that every single administration, since Jimmy Carter have supported and financed the "Islamic terror" network, created during the Carter administration at the outset of the Soviet-Afghan war. (See Michel Chossudovsky, Who is Osama bin Laden, 12 September 2001). al Qaeda is a instrument of US intelligence: a US sponsored intelligence asset.

      Where was Osama on Septembers 11?


      There is evidence that the whereabouts of Osama are known to the Bush Administration.

      On September 10. 2001, "Enemy Number One" was in a Pakistani military hospital in Rawalpindi, courtesy of America's indefectible ally Pakistan, as confirmed by a report of Dan Rather, CBS News. (See our October 2003 article on this issue)

      He could have been arrested at short notice which would have "saved us a lot of trouble", but then we would not have had an Osama Legend, which has fed the news chain as well as George W's speeches in the course of the last five years.

      According to Dan Rather, CBS, Bin Laden was hospitalized in Rawalpindi. one day before the 9/11 attacks, on September 10, 2001.

      "Pakistan. Pakistan's Military Intelligence (ISI) told CBS that bin Laden had received dialysis treatment in Rawalpindi, at Pak Army's headquarters.

      DAN RATHER, CBS ANCHOR: As the United states and its allies in the war on terrorism press the hunt for Osama bin Laden, CBS News has exclusive information tonight about where bin Laden was and what he was doing in the last hours before his followers struck the United States September 11.

      This is the result of hard-nosed investigative reporting by a team of CBS news journalists, and by one of the best foreign correspondents in the business, CBS`s Barry Petersen. Here is his report.

      (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BARRY PETERSEN, CBS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Everyone remembers what happened on September 11. Here`s the story of what may have happened the night before. It is a tale as twisted as the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

      CBS News has been told that the night before the September 11 terrorist attack, Osama bin Laden was in Pakistan. He was getting medical treatment with the support of the very military that days later pledged its backing for the U.S. war on terror in Afghanistan.

      Pakistan intelligence sources tell CBS News that bin Laden was spirited into this military hospital in Rawalpindi for kidney dialysis treatment. On that night, says this medical worker who wanted her identity protected, they moved out all the regular staff in the urology department and sent in a secret team to replace them. She says it was treatment for a very special person. The special team was obviously up to no good.

      "The military had him surrounded," says this hospital employee who also wanted his identity masked, "and I saw the mysterious patient helped out of a car. Since that time," he says, "I have seen many pictures of the man. He is the man we know as Osama bin Laden. I also heard two army officers talking to each other. They were saying that Osama bin Laden had to be watched carefully and looked after." Those who know bin Laden say he suffers from numerous ailments, back and stomach problems. Ahmed Rashid, who has written extensively on the Taliban, says the military was often there to help before 9/11.

      It should be noted, that the hospital is directly under the jurisdiction of the Pakistani Armed Forces, which has close links to the Pentagon. U.S. military advisers based in Rawalpindi. work closely with the Pakistani Armed Forces. Again, no attempt was made to arrest America's best known fugitive, but then maybe bin Laden was serving another "better purpose". Rumsfeld claimed at the time that he had no knowledge regarding Osama's health. (CBS News, 28 January 2002)...


      The CBS report is a crucial piece of information in our understanding of 9/11.

      It refutes the administration's claim that the whereabouts of bin Laden are unknown. It points to a Pakistan connection, it suggests a cover-up at the highest levels of the Bush administration.

      Dan Rather and Barry Petersen fail to draw the implications of their January 2002 report. They suggest that the US had been deliberately misled by Pakistani intelligence officials. They fail to ask the question:

      Why does the US administration state that they cannot find Osama?

      (complete article at http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=CHO20060909&articleId=3194)

      Just one note: Remember in September 2004 when Dan Rather was made to leave CBS news after reporting on President G.W. Bush’s military record? He was accused of using forged documents. No one has said anything was forged or false in Rather's Spetemebr 2001 reporting on Osama Ben Laden.

      Another important thing to point out is the website of the FBI does not mention 9/11 on its Osama Ben Laden webpage.
      See http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/terrorists/terbinladen.htm

      Why wouldn’t an attack which killed 3,000 people be specifically mentioned?
      Journalist Ed Haas’ investigates this,
      On June 5, 2006, the Muckraker Report contacted the FBI Headquarters, (202) 324-3000, to learn why Bin Laden’s Most Wanted poster did not indicate that Usama was also wanted in connection with 9/11. The Muckraker Report spoke with Rex Tomb, Chief of Investigative Publicity for the FBI. When asked why there is no mention of 9/11 on Bin Laden’s Most Wanted web page, Tomb said, “The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Usama Bin Laden’s Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11.”



      See complete article at http://www.teamliberty.net/id267.html

      Here is a film of a newsreport that asks the question why has Osama Ben Laden not been indicted for 9/11.

      Sunday, September 16, 2007

      Alan Greenspan: the Iraq war is largely about oil

      The US and Britain have always maintained that the war to oust Saddam Hussein was about weapons of mass destruction - not oil.

      US President George Bush said Saddam was a threat to world security because he could sell the weapons on to terrorists.

      But Mr Greenspan, a Republican who was boss of the US Federal Reserve for 18 years, said that was not the whole truth, according to a copy of the book seen by Associated Press.

      "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil," he is reported to have written.

      from http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-1284299,00.html

      Friday, August 24, 2007

      Jimmy Carter: a liar or a puppet president?

      In this interview with former President Jimmy Carter, on amazon.com( Click here and scroll down to see interview ) about his book Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, his answer to this question


      Q: What has been the importance of your own faith in your continued interest in peace in the Middle East?

      is

      A: As a Christian, I worship the Prince of Peace. One of my preeminent commitments has been to bring peace to the people who live in the Holy Land. I made my best efforts as president and still have this as a high priority.


      But here is an interview with (National Security Advisor to President Carter) Zbigniew Brzezinski at http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BRZ110A.html (from Le Nouvel Observateur, Paris, 15-21 January 1998 )

      Brzezinski says


      According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.


      and


      That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.


      In this article about the women of Afghanistan it says
      from http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Women/RevolAfghanWomen.html


      The USSR invaded Afghanistan in 1979 and occupied the country throughout the 1980s. The CIA hired the Mujaheddin (soldiers of God) to expunge the Communists from Afghanistan. The Mujaheddin were trained by Pakistan's Interservices Intelligence Directorate, and funded and armed by the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Egypt, France, Britain, Israel, Iran, Japan, and China. The U.S. spent $5 billion to support the rebels during the 1980s, and used Osama bin Laden, then an ally of the U. S ., to help recruit non-Afghan Muslims to the Mujaheddin.

      RAWA has pointed out that there were several democratic-minded groups the U.S. and other countries could have supported if they had wanted to drive out the Communists and help restore independence to Afghanistan. Why did these countries instead back the fundamentalist Mujaheddin? RAWA member Sajeda told Said lt magazine in August that pro-democracy groups would have refused to act as "puppets" for other countries, and would have made it difficult for those countries to "maintain their economic and political interests in Afghanistan."

      When the Soviet Union withdrew its army in 1989, the Mujaheddin, under the command of the despotic Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and still funded by the U.S., began shelling Afghanistan's cities, killing thousands of civilians. After the Soviet's puppet regime collapsed in 1992, the country was seized by civil war. Tens of thousands of civilians were killed in rocket attacks. The Mujaheddin stopped women from working and attending health courses sponsored by non-government organizations (NGOs). Amnesty International reported that armed groups beat, raped, and murdered women in their homes. Young women were kidnapped as wives for commanders or sold into prostitution. Some committed suicide to avoid this fate, like one young woman who threw herself off a balcony in her house when soldiers came to kidnap her. In March 1994, a 15-year-old girl was repeatedly raped after soldiers killed her father for allowing her to go to school. Many people were victimized for belonging to a certain religious or ethnic group.

      Tuesday, August 21, 2007

      Judith Miller and the Bloodbath in Iraq (Repeat)

      Here is a reminder of Judith Miller's contribution to journalism by Jospeh A. Palermo

      On April 21, 2003, Judith Miller, now working as an embedded reporter with the U.S. military's MET Alpha, wrote the story, "Illicit Arms Kept Till Eve of War, an Iraqi Scientist Is Said to Assert." In this piece of propaganda, Miller claims without evidence or proof that the Iraqis destroyed or shipped to Syria their vast stockpiles of WMDs. Miller's anonymous source was a guy claiming to be an "Iraqi scientist," and she tells her readers that she "was permitted to see him from a distance at the sites where he said that material from the arms program was buried. Clad in nondescript clothes and a baseball cap, he pointed to several spots in the sand where he said chemical precursors and other weapons material were buried."

      This "Iraqi scientist," who turned out to be bogus, allowed Miller to appear on PBS's Newshour with Jim Lehrer and have the following exchange:...

      complete article at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-a-palermo/judith-miller-and-the-blo_b_57023.html

      Friday, August 10, 2007

      The US has Returned Fundamentalism to Afghanistan


      Here http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/12/468/ is a transcript of the speech given by Malalai Joya, member of the Afghan Parliament, at the University of Los Angeles on Tuesday April, 10th.

      Here are two quotes from her speech.



      Respected friends, over five years passed since the US-led attack on Afghanistan. Probably many of you are not well aware of the current conditions of my country and expect me to
      list the positive outcomes of the past years since the US invasion. But I am sorry to tell you that Afghanistan is still chained in the fetters of the fundamentalist warlords and
      is like an unconscious body taking its last breath.

      The US government removed the ultra-reactionary and brutal regime of Taliban, but instead of relying on Afghan people, pushed us from the frying pan into the fire and selected its
      friends from among the most dirty and infamous criminals of the “Northern Alliance”, which is made up of the sworn enemies of democracy and human rights, and are as dark-minded, evil, and cruel as the Taliban.

      The Western media talks about democracy and the liberation
      of Afghanistan, but the US and its allies are engaged in the warlordization, criminalization and drug-lordization of our
      wounded land.

      ————————————————————————————–

      The gang-rape of young girls and women by warlords belonging to the “Northern Alliance” still continues especially in the northern provinces of Afghanistan. People have staged mass protests a number of times but no one cares about their sorrow and tears. Only a few of the rape cases find their way into the media. One shocking case was that of 11 year old Sanobar, the only daughter of an unfortunate widow who was abducted, raped and then exchanged for a dog by a warlord. In a land where human dignity has no price, the vicious rapist of a poor girl still acts as district chief.


      The only protests in Afghanistan the mainstream media reports on are the ones involving the abuse of the Quran or those Muhammed cartoons. Much of the mainstream media does not care to portray Muslims as human beings, who have the same concerns as everyone else. How much attention has Malalai Joya gotten in the mainstream media or from Western feminists? It is because she criticizes both U.S. military actions and the Taliban that she is not well known.

      Sunday, July 22, 2007

      Ellison, Bush, Hitler, the FBI, ben Laden and 9/11

      There was an uproar caused by some when the first Muslim congressman elected, Keith Ellison, compared Bush to Hitler.

      "Addressing a gathering of atheists in his home state of Minnesota, Keith Ellison, a Democrat, compared the 9/11 atrocities to the destruction of the Reichstag, the German parliament, in 1933. This was probably burned down by the Nazis in order to justify Hitler's later seizure of emergency powers. "

      "After his speech was reported, Mr Ellison said he accepted that Osama bin Laden was responsible for 9/11. But his demagogic comments threaten to plunge him in controversy. "
      from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/07/14/wbush114.xml

      Why should Mr. Ellison accept that Osama bin Laden was responsible for 9/11 when the FBI hasn't?

      Look at the FBI’s webpage on Osama Ben Laden http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/terrorists/terbinladen.htm

      Why wouldn’t an attack which killed 3,000 people be specifically mentioned?
      Journalist Ed Haas’ investigates this,

      On June 5, 2006, the Muckraker Report contacted the FBI Headquarters, (202) 324-3000, to learn why Bin Laden’s Most Wanted poster did not indicate that Usama was also wanted in connection with 9/11. The Muckraker Report spoke with Rex Tomb, Chief of Investigative Publicity for the FBI. When asked why there is no mention of 9/11 on Bin Laden’s Most Wanted web page, Tomb said, “The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Usama Bin Laden’s Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11.”


      See complete article at http://www.teamliberty.net/id267.html