Terrible Lies/ Terrible Truths
Essays on the American and Israeli perpetual war Plutocracies
The following are recurring themes in these papers. The American and Israeli people are free and have influence, but we do not control our countries. Our dysfunction is not due to incompetence, it is intentional. Our war plutocrats are the primary beneficiaries of our militarism, and these war plutocrats are the existential threat to our democracies, not foreign states and terrorists.
War plutocrats are the flesh and blood persons who own and operate our defense industries and other large corporations that benefit from war.
The following should be made widely known to the American public. If you read nothing else, read the few pages covering these referenced topics and check their sources and footnotes:
1982 Oded Yinon Plan called for the balkanization of the Middle East by and for the benefit of Israel. The American invasion and occupation of Iraq intentionally fractured Iraq implementing Paragraph 23. See Section 1.1 and Chapter 3.
The Pentagon in 2001 had plans for military campaigns against 7 Middle East countries within 5 years (Ch. 1). This plan has been drawn out but is well along and still in process.
Bush and Cheney in 2001 intentionally allowed al Qaeda to escape Tora Bora, Afghanistan (Ch. 2). The body of the paper is just one and a half pages. I recommend a review of Footnote (1) if you are not familiar with the modern history of America’s involvement in the Muslim world.
The Fed has 3 trillion in a “money creation account” hidden in financial institutions’ reserve deposits (Ch. 6 under “Federal Reserve Accounting”). This section is just one and half pages. As of 10/29/2014 the account was 2,919,995 M the difference between securities held and currency outstanding.
An unclassified, underreported but significant point on our economy:
Total domestic, nonfinancial debt to GDP has stayed above 247% since 2009 despite a growing GDP and a trillion-dollar reduction in household mortgages through over four million foreclosures. This is the highest or one of the highest debt/GDP ratios in our recorded history. It has been and will continue to be a drag on the American economy. We cannot service such indebtedness. Continued debt forgiveness with concomitant losses to creditors is unavoidable (Ch. 6). 11/15/2014 Note: The Fed recently reduced nonfinancial debt by 2.4 T. It reclassified these corporate bonds as miscellaneous other liabilities reducing the ratio of nonfinancial debt to GDP to just 234%. This manipulation was subsequently reversed.
2016 Total domestic, nonfinancial debt to GDP was 253.5%.
Source: http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/ See the 09/21/2017 release pages 7 and 9.
2009 to 2016, GDP grew 29.2%, but debt grew 31.3%.
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Now is the time. We may have begun a long war to destroy the Islamic State while offering no viable alternative. Fed tapering has ended . 09/2017 The Islamic State will soon lose its geographic holdings, but the war on terror will continue, and we still offer no viable alternative.
09/2017 The Fed has reinvested all its bond portfolio redemptions/ principal payments since tapering ended in 2014 and now plans to very slowly reduce its trillions in long term bond holdings beginning in October 2017.
Reading Guide
These essays were written as stand-alone pieces and may be read as such. Given the independence of each piece there is redundancy which is less than optimal but will allow you to move more quickly through later reading. I did not originally intend to write a book but eventually discerned in these pieces a logical progression in a whole work. Your background may preempt the need to follow this progression.
There are tangential pieces that I hope you will not find distracting but rather of interest. Some of the Footnotes and Addendums could stand alone as separate essays. You may find some of them of interest all by themselves. All the articles are dated. Significant new material was added in red and/or italics after the date of origin.
Titles of the chapters/ articles do not always clearly indicate the body of the work.
Chapter 2 The War on Terror is a Lie. – includes in Footnote (1) the actions America has taken in the Muslim world that created the hatred and terrorism against us. Footnotes 6, 7, and 8 are excerpts from three books including one by the CIA station chief in charge at Tora Bora and one by the head of Delta Force at Tora Bora. An essay/addendum was added later which postulates a relationship between the first publication of this article on 10/20/2009 and the 11/30/2009 report on Tora Bora by the majority staff of the Senate foreign relations committee.
Chapter 4 Religion Serves Politics - condemns the religious defense of the war on terror, concludes the Book of Joshua was uninspired, and includes an addendum that reconciles the Bible timeline, the Jewish timeline, and the historical timeline. If you are a Bible student you should find this essay/addendum of interest even if you thoroughly disagree with the rest of the paper.
Chapter 6 Great Recessions II - includes a review of basic economics theory, economic history in the S&L crisis and the great recession, reasons to predict another great recession, and a critique of the Fed.
Chapter 7 Gun Control: A bigger picture – may be the heart of this eBook. It advances the theory that we are a sick society made sick by our unwillingness to face terrible truths. It reviews the history of those truths. We have been an aggressor nation since before our inception.
It advances the case against our war plutocrats. It makes the case for gun control in cutting our military, intelligence, and security spending in half, back to year 2000 spending. The gun control we need most is the defunding of possible, future American aggression.
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It also supports some traditional gun control if that control does not eliminate effective weapons in the hands of citizens. We are capable of self-governance and self-defense. And, we may need these weapons to make things right.
Chapter 9, Section 1 Pivot to Diplomacy – It recommends foreign policy positions to replace our current, corrupt dollar diplomacy with a values-based diplomacy, attempts to clarify issues, and recommends actions to be taken regarding the Islamic State, Israel/ Palestine, Eastern Ukraine, and China.
We have fought against evil, but we have arguably fought for even greater evil in the continuing war, chaos, and corruption we left behind in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Libya…
We will stop losing wars when we stop fighting unjust wars. Stop
2014 11 15
This is a controversial book. A primary advantage of the eBook version is that you may instantly check the sources available online. If you prefer to read a paper version, read it with the eBook on your computer so you can quickly check sources. You can order the paperback version at:
https://www.amazon.com/Terrible-Lies-Truths-Perpetual-Plutocracies/dp/1973434563/
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1 Our Plutocrats’ Plans
2014 09 23
Mere incompetence could not create the current level of dysfunction, and gross error uncorrected over time is most always intentional. There is almost no aspect of the current reality that is not manipulated by these Plutocrats’ machinations.
These planners/ sociopaths control America, Israel, and much of the rest of the world.
They are a large portion of our plutocrats including war plutocrats, financial plutocrats, and additional unknowns. They appear to value short term extraordinary profits over even their own long term best interests with no concern for others. They created the Great Recession through fraud, and while their American banks paid 65
B+ in settlements as of 11/2013, they were subject to no direct consequences.
Almost no one went to jail. The world is theirs to rule and/or destroy with impunity.
One Plan - Protocols of the Elders of Zion as reviewed by Alexander Solzhenitsyn Source: http://www.whale.to/c/alexander.html
The Anonymous author of the Protocols describes a master-plan for vast restructuring of society, creation of a new oligarchy, and subjugation of millions. Anonym’s way to subjugation leads through Machiavellian manipulations and mind control a la Orwell’s 1984. (Orwell’s homage to the Protocols is even more striking as it is rarely noticed).
The master-plan begins with reshaping the human mind:
“People’s minds should be diverted (away from contemplation) towards industry and trade, and then they will have no time to think. The people will be consumed by the pursuit of gain. It will be vain pursuit, for we shall put industry on a speculative basis: what is withdrawn from the land by industry will slip through the hands of workers and industrialists and pass into the hands of financiers.
The intensified struggle for survival and superiority, accompanied by crises and shocks will create cold and heartless communities with strong aversion towards religion. Their only guide is gain that is Mammon, which they will erect into a veritable cult.”
Foresight of Anonym is amazing: in the days of the Protocols’ publication (Russia 1903), Man was still the measure of things, and a full eighty years would pass, until Milton Friedman and Chicago School would proclaim Market and Profit as the only guiding light.
- Per Solzhenitsyn End
The Protocols are a forgery, but the Protocols’ anonymous author was amazingly prescient, and I believe there is a plan. Whose plan? Unknown though it appears our financial plutocrats are the primary beneficiaries.
War Plans – of America’s Tax-Exempt Foundations uncovered by Norman Dodd and the Reece Committee 1954
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The Committee’s investigators reviewed board minutes of Tax-Exempt Foundations including the Carnegie Endowment from its inception in 1910, the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and others. These minutes revealed these boards’ conclusions: War is the most effective means of changing a society. Control of the State Department is the most effective means to involve the US in wars. Control of education will prevent reversion of the country back to where we were in 1914. Sources: 1982 interview with Norman Dodd
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUYCBfmIcHM
and
A transcript - http://realityzone.stores.yahoo.net/hiddenagenda2.html
The Oded Yinon Plan 1982
31 Paragraphs
This plan calls for the balkanization of the Middle East to be brought about by and for the benefit of Israel. Whether or not this plan was ever formally adopted as Israeli policy is irrelevant. What is relevant is that this plan has been followed and is being followed.
Paragraph 23 describes what President George W Bush and Vice President Cheney accomplished with the intentional destruction of Iraq. See chapter 3. The Plan’s Paragraph 26
describes what Israel has done and is doing to bring about the annexation of the West Bank. See excerpts from this plan in the next Section 1.1.
War Plans – The Pentagon’s 2001 Middle East Plans
Retired General Wesley Clark states there was an American foreign policy coup in 2001 calling for military campaigns against seven countries in the Middle East. He thought it may have been to enhance American control in the area. Around 9/20/2001 he spoke with a general on the Joint Chiefs’ staff and learned the decision to attack Iraq had already been made. Six weeks later the same general produced a memo that described how we are going to take out seven countries in five years starting with Iraq then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and finishing off Iran.
Sources: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TY2DKzastu8
10/3/2007 Commonwealth Club/ https://www.youtube.com/foratv , and (1) Iraq was invaded to destroy Iraq and create a continuing, violent division between Sunni and Shiite. See Chapter 3. This division spread to Syria and is now resurgent in Iraq. Libya’s factions continue to fight. The Somali government continues to fight al Shabaab. Sudan is pitted against South Sudan while South Sudan is in civil war. Egypt is divided between liberals, the military, and the Muslim Brotherhood. Yemen is fighting both a Shiite Houthi rebellion and a Sunni al Qaeda backed insurgency. Palestine may or may not hold together in a national unity government combining Fatah and Hamas.
Who benefits? -
American and Israeli war plutocrats - continue to make their war profits. They are the flesh and blood persons who own and operate our defense industries and other major corporations that benefit from our perpetual war economies.
Financial plutocrats - are war plutocrats to the extent they benefit from war.
Oil plutocrats – Disorder in oil producing countries such as Libya, Iraq, and Iran increases oil prices and thereby increases oil company profits.
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Greater Israel Zionists - with the Arab world divided there is reduced threat to a greater Israel.
Israel could annex most of the West Bank with near impunity.
Greater Israel Zionists – appear to be a significant subset of our war plutocrats.
Israel exists thru perpetual war though this need not be so. The Balfour Declaration came about in WW I. The Holocaust in WW II created the impetus for the migration of survivors to Israel.
Israel expanded its borders thru wars in 1948 and 1967. (There was an ongoing civil war before Israel’s declaration of statehood in 5/1948. Israel attacked Egypt on 10/29/1956 beginning the Suez War. Israel initiated military actions on June 5th and again on June 9th in 1967.) The solution to every problem is alleged to be military action when in fact only political solutions will bring peace, but peace is not a goal.
Greater Israel Zionists and greater Palestine terrorists are collaborators with unending occupation rationalizing unending terror, rationalizing unending occupation, rationalizing unending terror... Greater Zionists actually want a two-state solution but with a greater Israel incorporating Judea and Samaria and with a decrepit, rump state of Palestine in Gaza.
Greater Zionists are Drang nach Osten (yearning for the East) for Lebensraum (life room) in Judea and Samaria. Further, perpetual war provides the evolutionary vehicle through which the strongest survive and thereby strengthen the race. In the same way the Nazis destroyed Germany, greater Zionists will destroy Israel. These War Plans are not in the long-term best interests of Israel.
Conclusion
No foreign states or terrorists are existential threats to America or Israel. As America and Israel are plutocracies, though Americans and Israelis are free and have influence, we do not control our countries. American and Israeli war plutocrats with their cronies control our countries. They are the existential threat to our democracies. Eliminate their profits/ mammon by ending American and Israeli aggression. Pivot to diplomacy.
Sources and Footnotes:
(1) Winning Modern Wars by Wesley Clark (New York: Public Affairs, 2003), 130. In this book Clark describes his conversation with a military officer in the Pentagon shortly after 9/11
regarding a plan to attack seven Middle Eastern countries in five years: "As I went back through the Pentagon in November 2001, one of the senior military staff officers had time for a chat. Yes, we were still on track for going against Iraq, he said. But there was more. This was being discussed as part of a five-year campaign plan, he said, and there were a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and finishing off Iran."
Definitions: Greater Zionists - in this writing, the term does not include those who dream of a greater Israel brought about by just means.
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2016 02 06
This plan calls for the balkanization of the Middle East to be brought about by and for the benefit of Israel. Whether or not this plan was ever formally adopted as Israeli policy is irrelevant.
What is relevant is that this plan has been followed and is being followed. Paragraph 23
describes what President George W Bush and Vice President Cheney accomplished with the intentional destruction of Iraq. See Chapter 3. The Plan’s Paragraph 26 describes what Israel has done and is doing to bring about the annexation of the West Bank.
A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties by Oded Yinon February 1982
31 paragraphs
Excerpts:
Paragraph 13 – This national ethnic minority picture extending from Morocco to India and from Somalia to Turkey points to the absence of stability and a rapid degeneration in the entire region.
When this picture is added to the economic one, we see how the entire region is built like a house of cards, unable to withstand severe problems.
Paragraph 15 - …A sad and very stormy situation surrounds Israel and creates challenges for it, problems, risks but also far-reaching opportunities for the first time since 1967…
Paragraph 20 - …Egypt, in its present domestic political picture, is already a corpse, all the more so if we take into account the growing Moslem-Christian rift. Breaking Egypt down territorially into distinct geographical regions is the political aim of Israel in the Nineteen Eighties on its Western front.
Paragraph 21 - …If Egypt falls apart, countries like Libya, Sudan or even more distant states will not continue to exist in their present form and will join the downfall and dissolution of Egypt…
Paragraph 22 - …Lebanon’s total dissolution into five provinces serves as a precedent for the entire Arab world including Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and the Arabian Peninsula and is already following that track. The dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically and religiously unique areas such as in Lebanon, is Israel’s primary target on the Eastern front in the long run, while the dissolution of the military power of those states serves as the primary short-term target. Syria will fall apart, in accordance with its ethnic and religious structure, into several states such as in present day Lebanon… This state of affairs will be the guarantee for peace and security in the area in the long run, and that aim is already within our reach today.
Paragraph 23 - Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other, is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel’s targets. Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria. Iraq is stronger than Syria. In the short run it is Iraqi power which constitutes the greatest threat to Israel. …Every kind of inter-Arab confrontation will assist us in the short run and will shorten the way to the more important aim of breaking up Iraq into denominations as in Syria and Lebanon. In Iraq, a division into provinces along 10
ethnic/religious lines as in Syria during Ottoman times is possible. So, three (or more) states will exist around the three major cities: Basra, Baghdad, and Mosul and Shiite areas in the south will separate from the Sunni and Kurdish north…
Paragraph 24 – The entire Arabian Peninsula is a natural candidate for dissolution…
Paragraph 25 – Jordan constitutes an immediate strategic target in the short but not in the long run for it does not constitute a real threat in the long run after its dissolution…
Paragraph 26 - …Israel’s policy, both in war and in peace, ought to be directed at the liquidation of Jordan under the present regime and the transfer of power to the Palestinian majority. Changing the regime east of the river will also cause the termination of the problem of the territories densely populated with Arabs west of the Jordan. Whether in war or under conditions of peace, emigration from the territories and economic demographic freeze in them, are the guarantees for the coming change on both banks of the river, and we ought to be active in order to accelerate this process. …it is not possible to go on living in this country in the present situation without separating the two nations, the Arabs to Jordan and the Jews to the areas west of the river. …A nation of their own and security will be theirs only in Jordan.
Source:
A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties by Oded Yinon
31 paragraphs
Published February 1982 in Hebrew in KIVUNIM (Directions) Issue 14, a Journal for Judaism and Zionism. KIVUNIM was/is published by the Department of Publicity/ The World Zionist Organization, Jerusalem
An English translation was completed by Israel Shahak 06/13/1982 published by the Association of Arab American University Graduates, Inc.:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/pdf/The%20Zionist%20Plan%20for%20the%20Middl
http://www.globalresearch.ca/greater-israel-the-zionist-plan-for-the-middle-east/5324815
The Management of Savagery - Ali Soufan states this “book sets out a strategy closely aligned with official al-Qaeda doctrine… The Management of Savagery playbook… proceeds in three phases. Phase one involves creating and exploiting chaos, or ‘savagery.’ Phase two entails building popular support for Salafi-jihadi rule. Not until phase three do we reach the establishment of a permanent Islamic state.” (a, b p.184)
The Oded Yinon Plan and The Management of Savagery share similar paths toward different ends. Al Qaeda and Israel appear to recognize the commonality of their paths given the few incidents of al Qaeda and Israel attacking each other. The 2002 Mombasa attacks may be one such incident. I submit America, Israel, and al Qaeda are allies in Savagery’s phase one.
(a) The Management of Savagery - https://azelin.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/abu-bakr-naji-the-
management-of-savagery-the-most-critical-stage-through-which-the-umma-will-pass.pdf *
(b) Anatomy of Terror by Ali Soufan (Former FBI Interrogator)
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2 The War on Terror is a Lie
2010/12/30
Injustice in American foreign policy is a primary cause of the terror against us. We will not end terror without justice and a return to American ideals. (1)
Terror must be fought with law enforcement. It is not primarily a military problem (2). A million men-at-arms are required to fight conventional wars and insurgencies as in Afghanistan and Iraq. The FBI, CIA, other intelligence services, and the military’s Special Forces are required to fight terror. The deployment of hundreds of thousands of our troops indicates we are fighting for some purposes other than stopping terror – purposes such as empire, cheap natural resources, and war profits for those who have contrived this war on terror.
We cannot now bring many Guantanamo detainees to trial because we did not build the legal cases necessary to prosecute them. Only 23 of 770 Guantanamo detainees had been charged with war crimes as of October 2008 (3).
Torture was used to build the lie. It is unreliable, counter-productive, and not a means to the truth. Torture was used to get Guantanamo detainees to confess and implicate others whether or not they and those they implicated were guilty. Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi’s torture in Egypt produced the lie that Saddam Hussein trained al Qaeda in biological and chemical weapons (4).
Abu Zubaydah while subjected to torture/ waterboarding told his interrogators that al-Qaeda had links with Saddam Hussein (5). These lies helped rationalize the Iraq war.
The Bush administration refused to fight and win the war on terror ( 5½). They intentionally allowed al-Qaeda and bin Laden to escape Afghanistan in December 2001 and subsequently refused to take the actions necessary to capture or destroy them. The Administration, after being clearly briefed that “the back door was open,” refused to send 1,200 marines to Tora Bora (6), refused to authorize 800 Rangers or alternately mines to block the passes at Tora Bora, and then fired the CIA station chief in the middle of the operation. (7, 8) If al-Qaeda and bin Laden had been captured or destroyed in December 2001, the war on terror would have come to a premature end, leaving no quasi-rationalization for perpetual war in Afghanistan and Iraq, and less quasi-rationalization for a possible future attack on Iran.
Conclusion: The “war on terror” is a lie. It was used as cover for other purposes in a gross contravention of American ideals. America is existentially threatened by those who have contrived this war on terror - our domestic enemies, not by foreign terrorists.
See the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s 11/30/2009 Report on Tora Bora at:
http://foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Tora_Bora_Report.pdf
The Committee concluded the escape from Tora Bora was a senior management failure, but the senior managers they faulted were Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and CentCom General Franks not President Bush and Vice President Cheney who were fully informed of the situation. See footnotes 6, 7, and 8 on Tora Bora.
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Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
Zarqawi led Jama’at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad which became al Qaeda in Iraq and then with other Jihadi groups evolved into ISIS. In the fall of 2002 in northern Iraq, a CIA kill/capture team was set to go after Zarqawi. The Bush administration stopped the operation (a). They wanted to use Zarqawi as a link between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein to help rationalize the Iraq war. Colin Powell mentioned Zarqawi 21 times in his 2/5/2003 address to the UN (a, b p.128). The
administration refused to eliminate Zarqawi just as they had refused to eliminate bin Laden
and al Qaeda at Tora Bora.
Zarqawi was affiliated with but was not yet part of al Qaeda. He had not yet sworn fealty (Bayat) to bin Laden. He was in or near the camp of Ansar al Islam in northern Kurdish Iraq outside the control of Saddam Hussein. There was no link.
If Bush had killed or captured Zarqawi in 2002, there may never have been an al Qaeda in
Iraq or an ISIS.
(a) 5/17/2016 Frontline Episode 542, S34: E10, The Secret History of ISIS
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/the-secret-history-of-isis/
See 6:30 minutes into the video, at 8:30 Bush stopped the kill/capture operation.
(b) Anatomy of Terror by Ali Soufan (Former FBI Interrogator)
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(1) Stopping Terror with Justice
Author’s Notes
Justice in American foreign policy would eliminate 90% of the terror against us. The Muslim world dislikes us for many substantive reasons, including the following:
Our aid to Egypt’s Mubarak and petrodollars to the Arab monarchies enable them to oppress their people.
We have done grave harm to the people and state of Iran, while they have done little harm to us. We overthrew the popular prime minister of Iran, Mohammad Mosaddeq, in 1953 and replaced him with the Shah who with his Savak secret police oppressed his people for a generation. We supported Iraq, the clear aggressor, in the 1980s Iraq/ Iran war, and 400,000
Iranians died. In 1979 Iran took Americans hostage. One of their primary demands was that we not interfere in their internal affairs. Their actions were not unreasonable given our actions in 1953, and all hostages came home.
We supported an arms embargo of Bosnia that left Serbs well-armed and Muslims less able to defend themselves against genocide, systematic rape, and ethnic cleansing. In addition, we allowed Karadzic and Mladic, the President and General of the Bosnian Serb Republic, to live in NATO controlled areas with impunity for years even though they were two of the most egregious, genocidal terrorists on the planet.
We have helped pay for Israel’s aggression in the Occupied Territories for a generation. The settlement of 500,000 Israelis East of the green line is aggression and/or conquest. These terms apply.
We committed unprovoked aggression against Iraq, and John Hopkins University Reports estimate hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died.
Actions such as these have combined to create the hatred against us. But, we can eliminate this hatred and its resultant terror with justice. Where America has been in error, we must recognize those errors and make amends. We do not need to spend the additional hundreds of billions we have been spending since 9/11 on defense, security, and intelligence. We do not need to be occupiers and torturers. We do not need an empire to be secure – quite the opposite. We are creating more terrorists than we are eliminating. We do not need to give up our privacy and our freedom. We do not need a strong defense more than we need to be strong in the defense of truth and justice.
(2) Rand Study – “How Terrorist Groups End”
http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG741-1/
The Study’s authors conclude that policing and intelligence, rather than military force, should form the backbone of U.S. efforts against al Qa'ida. And, U.S. policymakers should end the use of the phrase “war on terrorism” since there is no battlefield solution to defeating al Qa'ida.
Author’s notes: The destruction of al Qaeda camps and sanctuaries in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and other countries has and will require military action. For example, the battle of Tora Bora was a military operation against up to 1,000 primarily al-Qaeda fighters including terrorists and insurgents.
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Al-Qaeda is both a terrorist and an insurgent organization. Terrorism by itself cannot be an existential threat to a government. Terrorism supporting an insurgency can be such a threat.
“The (al-Qaeda) training camps… though they turned out a few thousand terrorists; they turned out a hundred thousand or more insurgents. The graduates, in turn, trained tens of thousands more insurgents after returning home.” (Imperial Hubris by Michael Scheuer, Potomac Books -
Paperback edition p. 222)
(3) The Guantanamo Effect by Laurel Fletcher and Eric Stover 2009 See excerpts at:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/07/01/990357/-Torture-Update-2010-12-15
(4) 5/12/2009 Newsweek web exclusive http://www.newsweek.com/id/196818
“Death in Libya” by Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball
http://www.newsweek.com/did-high-value-detainee-commit-suicide-libya-79805
by Michael Isikoff 5/11/2009
(5) 11/9/2010 Guardian UK -- British deny George Bush's claims that torture helped foil terror plots. By Richard Norton-Taylor and Ian Black
Update - FBI Agent Ali Soufan was the first to interrogate Zubaydah after his 2002 capture in Pakistan. Soufan has condemned the CIA for waterboarding a prisoner he considered cooperative. One official said most all of the critical threat-related information from Zubaydah was obtained during the period he was questioned by Soufan well before he was interrogated by the CIA and waterboarded 83 times. (Source: Classified 2014 Senate Report by the Senate Intelligence Committee per Washington Post article “Report: CIA misled on interrogations” in the 4/1/2014 SDUT p. A1.)
See Section 2.1 Torture Update.
(5½) On 11/21/2001 Bush ordered Rumsfeld to update plans for an attack on Iraq. Rumsfeld called Franks while he and an aide were working on plans for air support at Tora Bora and ordered Franks to update Iraq plans and get back to him in a week. The shift in resources from Afghanistan to Iraq began even before Tora Bora.
Source: http://foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Tora_Bora_Report.pdf quoting Plan of Attack by Bob Woodward and American General by Tommy Franks. See page 12/ pdf page 18.
(6) The One Percent Doctrine
by Ron Suskind
Hardcover edition
Excerpts:
p. 58-59 Hank Crumpton headed up the CIA’s Afghan campaign from Langley. He briefed the President in late November 2001:
“…Crumpton…showed Bush how the Campaign’s prime goal- to capture bin Laden- was in jeopardy.”
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“…Bush asked about the passage to Pakistan. Musharraf had assured the administration…that his troops would seal the passages into Pakistan, the most logical escape route. Crumpton, using his map, showed how the border between the countries was misleading, that the area on the Pakistan side of the line was a lawless, tribal region that Musharraf had little control over. In any event satellite images showed that Musharraf’s promised troops hadn’t arrived, and seemed unlikely to appear soon.”
“What’s more, Crumpton added, the Afghan forces were ‘tired and cold and, many of them are far from home.’ They were battered from fighting in the south against Taliban forces, and
‘they’re just not invested in getting bin Laden.’”
“A few days before, on November 26, a force of about 1,200 marines… had settled around Kandahar… Crumpton, in constant contact with the Military’s CENTCOM center in Tampa, Florida, had told General Tommy Franks over the past week of the concerns of the CIA’s managing operatives in Afghanistan that “the back door was open.” He strongly urged Franks to move the marines to the cave complex. Franks responded that the momentum of the CIA’s effort to chase and corner bin Laden could be lost waiting for the troops to arrive; and there was concern marines would be mired in the snowy mountains.”
“As Crumpton briefed the President- and it became clear that the Pentagon had not voiced the CIA’s concerns to Bush - he pushed beyond his pay grade. He told Bush that “we’re going to lose our prey if we’re not careful,” and strongly recommended the marines, or other troops in the region, get to Tora Bora immediately. Cheney said nothing.
Bush, seeming surprised, pressed him for more information. ‘How bad off are these Afghani forces really? Are they up to the job?’
‘Definitely not, Mr. President,’ Crumpton said, ‘Definitely not.’”
p. 74 “Classified CIA reports passed to Bush in his morning briefings of early December, however, warned that ‘the back door is open’ and that a bare few Pakistani army units were visible gathering near the Pakistani border. None had crossed into Afghanistan, a fierce tribal area Pakistan had always been reluctant to enter.”
(7) Jawbreaker
Excerpt(s) from JAWBREAKER: THE ATTACK ON BIN LADEN AND AL QAEDA: A
PERSONAL ACCOUNT BY THE CIA'S KEY FIELD COMMANDER by Gary Berntsen and
Ralph Pezzullo, copyright © 2005 by Gary Berntsen and Ralph Pezzullo. Used by permission of Crown Books, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. Any third-party use of this material, outside of this publication, is prohibited. Interested parties must apply directly to Penguin Random House LLC for permission.
Page numbers are from the original Hardcover edition.
Gary Berntsen was the CIA station chief in East Afghanistan in 2001. He documented the ineffectiveness of Afghan troops and repeatedly requested 800 Rangers to block the passes 16
between Tora Bora and Pakistan. His requests were denied, and he was relieved in the middle of the operation. Al-Qaeda was allowed to escape to Pakistan.
Excerpts:
p. 211 Colonel Alexander was a SF (Special Forces) Colonel working with CIA Special Activities Division for the past two years. “He’d also been part of multiple plans to capture bin Laden during 1999 and 2000, all of which had been canceled at the last minute.”
p. 239 “Two days before the fall of Kabul (on November 12), the London Sunday Times reported that the al-Qaeda leader was seen entering Jalalabad in a convoy of white Toyota trucks surrounded by commandos… At mid-afternoon as US bombs fell on the city…”
“…bin Laden…left in a convoy of four-wheel drive vehicles.”
“This same convoy of approximately two hundred Toyotas and Land Cruisers was seen two days later passing through the village of Agam two hours south.”
p. 241 “On the night of November 23rd Northern Alliance sources claimed that two Pakistani planes landed in Kunduz under the cover of darkness to extract key Pakistani advisors to the Taliban and several high-ranking Taliban officials. I had no way to confirm this, but wasn’t surprised. Pakistan’s ISI Directorate had helped create the Taliban and had been a close ally of their government for years…”
Tora Bora
p. 275 “From the start it was clear that the men leading this new Afghan force did not have the same desire we did to pursue and destroy al Qaeda. And many of the foot soldiers were followers of local religious leader Maulawi Mohammad Younus Khalis, who had instructed them to allow al-Qaeda to escape.”
p. 290 “Day and night, I kept thinking, We needed US soldiers on the ground! We need them to do the fighting! We need them to block a possible al-Qaeda escape into Pakistan! I’d sent my request for 800 US Army Rangers and was still waiting for a response. I repeated to anyone at headquarter who would listen: ‘We need Rangers now! The opportunity to get bin Laden is slipping away!!’”
“…I’d made it clear in my reports that our Afghan allies were hardly anxious to get at al-Qaeda in Tora Bora. So why was the US military looking for excuses not to act decisively? Why would they want to leave something that was so important to an unreliable Afghan army that’d been cobbled together at the last minute? This was the opportunity we’d hoped for when we launched this mission. Our advantage was quickly slipping away.”
p. 296 Tora Bora 12/14/2001 Berntsen is relieved.
(12/9/2001) “I heard Hank clear his throat. ‘We’ve selected a permanent chief which will allow you to return to your post in South America.’… ‘It’s Rich the chief of (Alec Station),’ Hank answered… ‘He should get to you by the fourteen of December.’ That was five days away.”
(Richard Blee was head of Alec Station, the Bin Laden Issue Station)
17
p. 297 “… Now that we finally had bin Laden and his al-Qaeda cadres trapped in the White Mountains why was headquarters pulling us out? And why was Washington hesitant about committing troops to get bin Laden? These were the questions that kept me up at night.”
(8) Kill Bin Laden
by Dalton Fury
St. Martin’s Press/New York Hardcover edition
Excerpts:
Dalton Fury is the nom de plume of the Major in charge of Delta Force on the ground at Tora Bora.
p. XXIV “At the end of the day, the men and women farther up the ladder normally take the word and recommendations of us - the guys on the ground. At some critical times, that did not happen with the complex fight in Tora Bora. Instead, at times, we were micromanaged by higher-ups unknown, even to the point of being ordered to send the exact coordinates of our teams back to various folks in Washington.”
“The muhj (Mujahideen) allies turned their guns on our boys to stop an advance.”
“When we arrived in Afghanistan in December 2001, the US was pulling troops out of the area in a weird ploy to trick Usama bin Laden while stripping us of a quick reaction force.”
“The muhj… routinely left the battlefield when it got dark, at times abandoning our small teams in the mountains.”
p. 72 “Then we were slammed by a silly deception plan that had been dreamed up by parties unknown. The majority of the Rangers and our Delta teammates were being sent home!
Somebody had decided to try and fool Usama bin Laden, al Qaeda, and the Taliban into thinking that the Joint Special Operations Task Force had left the theater of operations, so that bad buys would let down their guard. The naïveté’ of that idea still boggles my mind today.
‘Aren’t we at war?’ we asked. Why were we not pouring all available assets in Afghanistan, rather than withdrawing our strength?”
p. 75 “Where were the satellite photos? Where were those maps of the cave entrances?”
p. 76-77 “There was another intriguing option, and we liked it enough to plan it out. What about going in the back door, across the 14,000 foot mountains on the Afghan-Pakistan border? What if several teams could insert safely by helicopter into Pakistan, on the far side of the highest Tora Bora peaks. They would have bottled oxygen and acclimate themselves as they ascended even higher, and once they crested the peaks and found any sign of al Qaeda, they would be in business.
The commandos would own the high ground and could accurately target bunkers and cave openings with lasers for US warplanes to strike them with relative impunity.
18
A tactical plan drawn up by the Delta experts is rarely denied, and in fact I cannot remember anyone ever saying no once Delta determined what it needed to do to accomplish its assigned mission. This one worked its way up through our various commanders, but somewhere way, way above us, it was denied. We would not be allowed to infiltrate through Pakistan.
Any plan has negatives, including this one. Just re-supplying such recon teams with water, ammunition, and radio batteries would have been a tall order. That did not mean, however, that we should not do it. We were Delta and we could overcome such things. Having Delta guarding the far side of the mountain passes, closing the ring, would have made a huge difference. But our plan was shot down.”
p. 78 “…the air fleet was being downsized in a strange attempt to fool the terrorists.”
“Ashley (Delta Force Squadron Commander of Fury’s team) wanted to make those possible exit routes even more dangerous by dropping some CBU-89 Gator mines into the passes. The Gators would spread a minefield that would both deny enemy foot soldiers their escape routes and also knock out vehicles, leaving the enemy trapped and shaping the battlefield more to our liking.
Even this logical request was disapproved at some higher level, most likely even above the four-stars at CENTCOM.”
p. 210-215 December 12, 2001 An alleged al Qaeda surrender
Haji Zaman Ghamshareek – Pashtun warlord who controlled Jalalabad and was one of the senior Afghan commanders at Tora Bora. He later fled the country and was on the run when this book was written.
MSS Grinch – Mission Support Site MSS under the command of Sergeant Major Jim code named Grinch. The mission consisted of 25 American and British commandos.
“The (local) commander said that al Qaeda had thrown in the towel! A full surrender of all al Qaeda forces was about to take place!
As Jim’s fury grew, the local commander raised Zaman on his radio, and the warlord himself issued an order that the foreign commandos were not to proceed any farther into the mountains.
‘Whatever it takes,’ Zaman said in Pashto. ‘Under no circumstances are the Americans allowed to attack al Qaeda. We must see the negotiations through.’
…Jim knew the surrender gambit was nonsense, and said so. He responded that he had his own orders and intended to see them through…Within twenty minutes after hearing Zaman insist that Americans would not be allowed to take another step, Jim and MSS Grinch began humping up the ridgeline.
They had covered only about fifty meters when Zaman’s men appeared on the high ground and leveled their weapons- eighty AK-47s- at the commandos… the odds in a fire fight were 19
probably about even… but getting into a shootout with your supposed allies was not the most diplomatic of moves. So MSS Grinch had little choice but to hold in place and let the cease fire situation play out a little more. An hour passed uneventfully except for the commandos stewing about being held back.
A few minutes after 6:00 AM, Zaman arrived with another dozen of his fighters… he took full credit for arranging the surrender…
Jim couldn’t figure out just yet who was doing the stalling. Was al Qaeda using Zaman to buy time? Or could Zaman perhaps be in cahoots with al Qaeda and delaying the fight to allow the enemy to consolidate its forces, reposition, or even escape?
…Jim intuitively decided that Zaman was dirty.”
…While Jim was dealing with Zaman, I dialed up Ashley on the satellite phone and filled him in.
He agreed that we had to let the alleged surrender run its course until 5:00 PM, since we really had no choice.”
p. 243 “With the two original observations posts forced to shut down because of the advancing…
forces… an opportunity presented itself to increase the relentless pursuit of bin Laden.
We now had twelve Green Berets out of a job (They had manned the posts which were now too far in the rear to be effective.), and several of General Ali’s subordinate commanders … were begging for commandos to direct bombs along their particular axis of advance. We wanted to oblige, as this would give us better visibility and at the same time provide firm locations on each group of muhj. With the Green Berets from Cobra 25 (one of the posts) now available, problem solved. Or so I thought. (General Hazret Ali was Zaman’s senior warlord.)
The decision to not allow them to enter the mountains dumbfounded me and frustrated the quiet professionals from Cobra 25. The Green Berets were now out of the fight completely…”
p. 246-247 “The dreadful weather also was playing havoc with some of the aircraft flying missions to blast the mountainous position, and visibility would change by the hour. We had to replace the fire support of those planes during the bad weather with some organic all-weather assets as soon as possible. The Rangers back at Bagram owned just such weapons, and we put in several requests from some Ranger mortars. Request denied. The reasons elude me still, particularly, since some of their officers told me that they were anxious to comply and get into the fight.”
p. 248 “When MSS Grinch had moved into the mountains days earlier, we had been unable to locate or bargain for donkeys (to move supplies). MSS Monkey had some, but even a donkey had its limits in this place. Once Grinch entered the radically steep terrain where they were now fighting, donkeys wouldn’t have helped at all.
We had another idea, and we once again went back to the Rangers… Two platoons of Rangers were sitting around back at Bagram, and we asked for one platoon to help. They could serve as a human logistics train from the last vehicle drop-off point in the foothills all the way up to MSS
20
Grinch, which was located several klicks away and at an elevation several thousand meters higher. Rangers could do what helicopters and mules could not. Request denied. Again, I never learned the reasons for that refusal.”
p. 294 “Leaving the back door open gave the rat a chance to run.”
21
2014 12 15 Re-edited
Updates to Chapter 2 - paragraph 4, footnotes 4 and 5.
2010 12 15
Alleged terrorist Abu Zubaydah while subjected to torture/ waterboarding told his interrogators that al-Qaeda had links with Saddam Hussein and that there was a plot to attack Washington with a dirty bomb. Both claims are now recognized by the CIA to have been false. (a) (2014 There was a Dirty Bomb plot, but even Zubaydah did not believe it was a viable plan. The CIA came to the same conclusion. Most important, it was disclosed by Zubaydah before he was subjected to CIA torture. See “Lie One” below.)
The CIA inspector general in 2004 found that there was no conclusive proof that waterboarding or other harsh interrogation techniques helped the Bush administration thwart any "specific imminent attacks." (b)
In 5/2009 Ali Soufan, a veteran FBI investigator, who interrogated senior al-Qaeda captives told the Senate Judiciary Committee that harsh interrogation techniques are "ineffective, slow and unreliable." He also disputed claims by former VP Cheney and others that these methods helped uncover major terrorist plots. Cheney had called for the release of two classified CIA memos that he says detail successes. Sen. Russ Feingold said he's seen the two documents, and they do not prove Cheney's case. (c)
In 11/2010 British officials said there was no evidence to support claims by Bush that information extracted by waterboarding KSM Khalid Sheikh Mohammed saved British lives by foiling attacks on Heathrow Airport and Canary Wharf. In fact, KSM was arrested a month after the Heathrow alert. British counter terrorism officials did say KSM provided "extremely valuable" information but that it mainly related to al-Qaida's structure. (a) Sources:
SDUT – San Diego Union Tribune
(a) 11/9/2010 Guardian UK -- British deny George Bush's claims that torture helped foil terror plots. By Richard Norton-Taylor and Ian Black
(b) 4/25/2009 SDUT p. A1 Military agency had doubts about "torture' effect.
(c) 5/14/2009 SDUT p. A5 Harsh interrogation techniques ineffective" by MCT News Service 2014 12 15
Torture was effective in creating false Intel to rationalize perpetual war. It was ineffective, however, in discerning the truth. Our war plutocrats’ cronies continue to lie claiming otherwise. One measure of its continuing, residual effectiveness can be seen in the budget just passed by Congress with nearly 600 billion in defense spending against a nonexistent threat.
The same budget also increased campaign spending limits so our war plutocrats could ensure future war funding. Tax revenues, which are needed elsewhere, fund war profits which in turn fund campaigns to keep tax revenues funding more war profits. Tax revenues which should be used to rebuild America’s crippled infrastructure are instead used to cripple other countries’
infrastructure. Stop
The lies continued - three more lies:
22
Lie One - The 12/10/2014 Wall Street Journal WSJ Editorial by former CIA directors and deputy directors (3, First problem) states, “We are convinced that both (Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed KSM) would not have talked absent the interrogation program.”
In April 2002, FBI Special Agent Ali Soufan interrogated Abu Zubaydah. Ali Soufan described one meeting as follows (1, page 230, footnote 1315), "So we went back. And we start talking to him. We took some Coke, tea, and we start talking about different things. We flipped him about different things, I and [REDACTED]. And then he came back to his senses, and he started cooperating again. And this is when he gave us Padilla."
Zubaydah did not provide the name “Jose Padilla” but did provide Padilla’s kunya and information on Padilla’s Dirty Bomb plot. Jose Padilla’s name had already been provided to the CIA. Zubaydah was not subjected to enhanced interrogation until August 2002. See (1) pages 225-239 1. The Thwarting of the Dirty Bomb/Tall Buildings Plot and the Capture of Jose Padilla.
Lie Two - The WSJ editorial states (3, First problem), “The CIA never would have focused on the individual who turned out to be bin Laden’s personal courier without the detention and interrogation program.”
The CIA’s 6/27/2013 Response to the Senate Report states (2, pdf pages 121-123), “The other intelligence that the Study (Senate Report) characterizes as “critical” did not distinguish Abu Ahmad (al-Kuwaiti) from others who had some level of access to Bin Ladin, especially before 9/11.”
Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti was the personal courier to bin Laden who eventually, after over seven more years, lead to bin Laden’s elimination.
“The Department of Justice finalized its approval of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques… on August 1, 2002.” ((1) Senate Report, p. 231)
“The CIA did not receive any information from CIA detainees on Abu Ahmed al Kuwaiti until 2003.” ((1) Senate Report, p. 380)
I refer you to the Senate Report Executive Summary’s pages 378 to 400 for a complete refutation of the CIA’s assertions. Prior to the use of CIA enhanced interrogations, the CIA had al-Kuwaiti’s phone numbers and email addresses. One phone number linked him to the bin Laden family. The CIA knew he was one of three close al Qaeda associates with access to bin Laden, and that he traveled frequently to meet with bin Laden. The CIA knew in 2002 al-Kuwaiti was special. (1a)
The Senate Report Executive Summary concluded on page 379, “the most accurate information on Abu Ahmad al-Kuwaiti obtained from a CIA detainee was provided by a CIA detainee (Hassan Ghul) who had not yet been subjected to the CIA's enhanced interrogation.” See further references to Hassan Ghul and Abu Ahmad al-Kuwaiti on Senate Report Executive Summary pages 133, 370, and 384.
23
Lie Three – The CIA’s Response (2, pdf p. 121) states, “Ammar (al-Bulachi), after undergoing enhanced interrogation techniques (in June 2003), was the first detainee to reveal what apparently was a carefully guarded al-Qa’ida secret – that Abu Ahmad (al-Kuwaiti) served as a courier for messages to and from Bin Ladin…”
The Senate Report Executive Summary states (1, p. 382), “On June 25, 2002, the CIA received reporting from another detainee in the custody of a foreign government – Riyadh the Facilitator –
suggesting al-Kuwaiti may have served as a courier for UBL (Bin Laden).” See additional Intel on 1, p. 386. This Intel was derived a year before Ammar al Bulachi was interrogated/tortured.
These lies were not merely political posturing; they were treason.
Sources and Footnotes:
(1) Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Report –
Committee Study of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program
Executive Summary
w declassification revisions 12/03/2014
https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/CRPT-113srpt288.pdf
The Executive Summary begins on pdf p. 30.
(1a) Senate Report Executive Summary pages 378-400
Section 12. Information on the Facilitator (al-Kuwaiti) that Led to the UBL Operation Prior to receiving Intel on al-Kuwaiti from enhanced interrogations the CIA knew the following about al-Kuwaiti in 2002:
phone numbers including a phone number linking al-Kuwaiti and the bin Laden family email addresses including one shared by al-Kuwaiti and al-Bulachi
Intel indicating he was one of three close associates of bin Laden and traveled frequently to meet with bin Laden -
Ridha al Najjar – On 6/5/2002 the CIA received Intel from this detainee in foreign custody stating Abu Ahmad (al-Kuwaiti) was one of three al Qaeda associates including KSM and Saad bin Laden who visited bin Laden. p. 382
Abu Zubair in 8/2002 reported al-Kuwaiti was one of a few close associates of bin Laden.
p. 383
Intel suggesting he was a courier by - Riyadh the Facilitator p. 382, 386
physical description, family info … from Abu Zubair p. 391
(2) 6/27/2013 CIA Response to the Senate Report
https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/CIAs_June2013_Response_to_the_SSCI_Study_on_the_For
mer_Detention_and_Interrogation_Program.pdf *
(3) Wall Street Journal 12/10/2014 Editorial – Ex-CIA Directors: Interrogations Saved Lives by former CIA directors George Tenet, Porter Goss and Michael Hayden and former deputy directors John McLaughlin, Albert Calland, and Stephen Kappes.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/cia-interrogations-saved-lives-1418142644
24
The Killing of Osama bin Laden
2015 05 21
Operation Neptune Spear
I strongly recommend Seymour Hersh’s original, full report on the killing of bin Laden at the following link. The fiction in the reporting of his death was entertaining, but not as entertaining as this nonfiction.
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n10/seymour-m-hersh/the-killing-of-osama-bin-laden
21 May 2015 London Review of Books published online Sunday 05/10/2015
Bin Laden was in Abbottabad under the control of Pakistan’s ISI, and they cooperated in the 5/2/2011 raid. Bin Laden had no couriers and no strategic or operational control of al Qaeda except perhaps those allowed by the ISI. There was no treasure trove of Intel.
Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti was the personal courier to bin Laden who was alleged to have led us to bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad. Last December former CIA directors and deputy directors claimed we only knew about al-Kuwaiti through enhanced interrogation techniques.
We have already proven al-Kuwaiti was identified without CIA torture (see above). We can now also prove al-Kuwaiti did not lead us to bin Laden’s compound. A former, senior intelligence officer with Pakistani ISI tipped off the CIA. In August 2010 he walked into the US Embassy in Islamabad.
Intelligence work requires some lies such as a cover story to protect the identity of the tipster and to give cover to cooperative Pakistani Army and ISI leadership. Al-Kuwaiti’s role could be deemed necessary but it was unnecessary and flat-out hubris to then claim torture was necessary to identify al Kuwaiti. These war plutocrats’ cronies continue to lie with impunity, and there is no reason to believe they will stop lying.
Along with other reasons, I submit we executed an unprotected, unarmed, and crippled bin Laden to keep him quiet about Saudi financing of and ties with al Qaeda, about al Qaeda’s plans for 9/11 not including the demolitions of the twin towers and WTC 7, about the war on terror, etc.
Kuwaiti/ Abu Ahmed al Kuwaiti aka Ibrahim Saeed Ahmed
25
2.2 Senate Committee’s 11/30/2009 Report on Tora Bora
and my original 10/20/2009 Article
There is an extraordinary similarity between my 10/20/2009 article at opednews.com and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Report of 11/30/2009. All interviews noted in the Report’s footnotes were conducted in October and November. No specific dates were given for these interviews. General Franks through a 10/27/2009 email from an aide declined to address discrepancies about bin Laden’s location or conclusions by Special Operations Command historians. My article was also published on 10/24/2009 at dailykos.com. Note –
although dailykos.com allows indefinite editing, the policy of opednews.com does not allow editing of an article by non-Premium members after 24 hours. I do not believe I edited either of these blogs and certainly would not have done so after reading the Committee’s Report. See the original opednews.com article at:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Proposed-Resolution--The-by-John-Scanlon-091016-
The Committee’s Report was a Committee majority (Democratic) staff Report not the results of a full Committee hearing. See their report at:
http://foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Tora_Bora_Report.pdf
“The decision not to deploy American forces to go after bin Laden or block his escape was made by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his top commander, Gen. Tommy Franks…”
(p. 2)
As a bank examiner when I finished an unwanted, controversial analysis another examiner would be detailed to write a rebuttal. The rebuttal provided cover for my management. I suspect a similar tactic has been employed here to provide cover for President Bush and Vice President Cheney. I suspect Senator Kerry requested a report on Tora Bora after 10/20/2009, and that my article was a rough draft for the Committee’s Report. Note: Conspiracy theorists will want to know that Mr. Kerry and Mr. Bush are both members of Yale’s “Skull and Bones” which may explain Kerry’s motivation for providing cover for Mr. Bush.
Full disclosure – the Committee’s Report was issued just before President Obama’s 12/1/2009
West Point announcement to add an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. No doubt earlier failures to add troops when necessary, helped Obama sell the additional surge of troops.
This does not change the fact this report attributed no blame to Bush and Cheney who were Rumsfeld’s and Franks’ fully informed superiors.
26
2004 02 01
An alliance with Serbia would be an abomination. Islam will despise us more than they already do. I will despise us for such an alliance. This issue is personal. It bothers me more than the war in Iraq. I have spent the last year fighting against war in Iraq and working to stop the next unjust war by pointing out the Administration’s lies, but ten years ago Bosnia made me despise peace without justice. I was a warmonger supporting unilateral, partisan intervention to stop the genocide. The idea that we would ally ourselves with these genocidal terrorists is despicable.
Administration sponsored Armageddon
2003 10 21
The Administration shows its incompetence, moral bankruptcy, and perhaps psychosis in plans to send 1,000 Serb combat forces to fight the Taliban in Kandahar (10/4/2003 San Diego Union Tribune). In grotesque contradiction to Serb actions in Bosnia and Kosovo, these forces are touted to have anti-terrorist capabilities.
If they actually have such capabilities, those skills should be used in Serbia to bring to justice the two most egregious terrorists on the planet, former Bosnian Serb President Karadzic and General Mladic. I suspect there is not the will to do so. Serbia may be democratized and reformed, but it recently issued a report claiming the mass graves around Srebrenica were primarily for combatants (10/12/2003 San Diego Union Tribune). Serbia remains unredeemed.
An alliance with Serbia will not bring down the Taliban; it will make them ascendant.
Such an alliance will bring down the Karzai government, accomplishing the exact opposite of its stated purpose. We should not ally ourselves with genocidal terrorists simply because they are Christian terrorists.
Al-Qaeda has killed thousands, but ultra-nationalist Serbs have killed hundreds of thousands.
In 1992 and 1993, the West refused to stop Bosnian-Serbs from killing more than 200,000
Bosnian Muslims. Why? We enforced an arms embargo that kept Muslims nearly defenseless against well-armed Serbs. Why? Subsequent to our unconscionably delayed intervention in late 1995, we allowed Karadzic and Mladic, the two men who lead the genocide, to live for years with impunity in NATO-controlled areas of Bosnia. Why?
Given this planned alliance with Serbia, I see the possibility Western planners in the early Nineties foresaw the coming of world Jihad and acquiesced in Bosnia’s slaughter. It would deprive our perceived, future enemy of significant population resources in Europe. America’s funding of the oppression of Palestine, unprovoked aggression in Iraq, and now an alliance with Serbia, combine with other injustices against Islam to make world Jihad a reality. If this theory is correct, our planners did not just foresee it, they have created it.
If Armageddon comes in my lifetime, I will stand where I stand today, with the God of Abraham.
He cannot be pleased that we divide ourselves in his name. I am a mere Irish-American and a Roman Catholic, but I stand with most all of my Muslim brothers against al-Qaeda terrorists and 27
Palestinian terrorists, but also against aggressor Serbs, aggressor Israelis, and aggressor Americans, in defense of American ideals. Bring it on, George!
Sources and Footnotes:
Serb ethnic cleansing brigade in training for Afghan mission
in the 2004 01 09
Scottish Herald by Ian Brice, Defence Correspondent
Serb paramilitary troops who last saw action in the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo in 1999 are being trained for anti-terrorist duties in Afghanistan beside some of the US forces who helped expel them from the Yugoslav province. The 1000-strong force comprises some former members of the "red berets", a feared military police unit which helped lead the campaign to drive the Albanian majority out of Kosovo and wipe out Kosovo Liberation Army resistance fighters.
The US has provisionally accepted the offer of the battalion to help relieve the strain on its overstretched garrison in Kandahar and to help hunt al Qaeda and Taliban fugitives in the mountains east of the city.
General Goran Radosavljevic, its proposed commander, led anti-guerrilla teams during the conflict alleged by Human Rights Watch to have committed atrocities against civilians, including the massacre of 41 villagers at Cuska in May, 1999. A New York court is also considering charging the Serb officer, alleging that he and other officials were responsible for the execution of three Albanian-Americans.
The Serbs forced more than 800,000 Muslim Kosovars from their homes before NATO
intervened in a 73-day bombing campaign and ground invasion. About 10,000 Kosovars, mainly civilians, are estimated to have been killed.
NATO approval is not needed for the planned Afghan deployment since the Serb contingent would be under US command. NATO's peacekeeping remit is only for Kabul, the capital.
28
2.4 Terrorism: The 03/10/1945 Bombing of Tokyo
12:00AM – 3:45AM
1995/03/01
The most lethal conventional bombing raid in history was an American atrocity - Terrorism.
Recently, the media has debated the justification for the nuclear bombing of Japan. A more necessary debate should consider the justification for the conventional area bombing of Japan.
The nuclear age has clouded our judgment.
There are significant differences between nuclear bombing and conventional bombing, and morality is still relevant in modern warfare. If we define terrorism as the targeting of civilians, then we must define the bombing of both Hiroshima (08/06/1945) and Tokyo (03/10/1945) as terrorist acts. Both raids targeted civilians. There were, however, differences. An atomic bomb, by its very nature, is a terror weapon. It can only be deployed in area bombing with significant civilian casualties. Conventional bombing, on the other hand, can and should use precision targeting and need not target civilians.
The nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki resulted in 220,000 deaths (2). A roughly equal number of Japanese, Okinawan, and American deaths resulted from the invasion of Okinawa (3). It is ludicrous to assume fewer deaths would have resulted from the invasion of the main islands of Japan. More people survived the war than would have if we had not used the atomic bomb. In addition, if we had not witnessed the destruction of an atomic bomb in World War II, we would not have worked to had to avoid its future use. The nuclear bombing of Hiroshima appears to have been justified. See a more current and contrary conclusion in the next essay – The Atomic Bomb was not needed to end WWII.
Conventional bombing was not so clearly justifiable, if at all, but there were reasons for the use of this strategy. Weather conditions over Japan made precision bombing difficult. The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) did a series of studies based on pre-war data. While the OSS believed that about half of Japanese manufacturing employees worked in shops of five people or less – the kind of shops scattered throughout flammable districts – it considered these enterprises relatively unproductive. It also stated that the proportion of workers in small establishments varied greatly from city to city, ranging from about 50% in Hiroshima to about 10% in Tokyo. But, the OSS
believed the small workshops made parts for other war items, served as feeder plants for larger factories, and that destroying them would yield economic results out of proportion to what they produced directly (1a).
Cottage industry was our nominal target, but Japanese morale was our actual target. In 2/1945
urban area attacks were given priority over all strategic targets except aircraft engine plants. By the end of the war, 600,000 Japanese civilians had been killed in conventional area bombing (2).
The primary target in the 3/10th raid on Tokyo was a working class, residential neighborhood.
The raid was conducted by 279 Superfortresses (B-29s) from the 21st Bomber Command under General Curtis LeMay. 60+ tons of napalm per square mile had been calculated to develop into an uncontrollable conflagration. Fragmentation bombs were interspersed with napalm to keep 29
firefighters away long enough to allow flames to become uncontrollable. 1,665 tons of bombs were dropped.
This was precision area bombing. Lead Superfortresses dropped marking bombs using precision bombsights. Planes following behind them dropped bomb clusters which created giant rings of fire. The remaining planes filled these giant rings. Temperatures reached 2000 degrees Fahrenheit. 15.8 square miles were incinerated. One million lost their homes. 140,000 lost their lives (2, 3a). Even if one could justify the area bombing of Japan because of a high concentration of cottage industry, such logic could not apply to Tokyo with only 10% of its manufacturing work force in small shops. This raid was an atrocity of epic proportion. A conclusion not based on 20/20 hindsight, but rather, on facts known at the time of the raid.
America’s actions in World War II overwhelmingly deserve praise, but there were those actions which should be condemned. Let us not fear the truth. If we do not learn from our mistakes, we will be doomed to repeat them. Perhaps, if we are willing to admit our mistakes, in time, the Japanese will be willing to admit their mistakes. March 9th between 9:00AM and 12:45AM PST
will mark the fiftieth anniversary of this raid. On that morning give a moment of your thoughts to Tokyo.
Sources:
(1) Wings of Judgment by Ronald Schaffer was my primary source for this article.
Published in 1985 by the Oxford University Press.
(1a) Original Sources:
OSS R&A 2262, “Japanese Small-scale Factories in Relation to Air Bombardment,” June 30, 1944, in COA History, frames 726-33;
OSS R&A 2220.1, “Concentration of Employment and Value of Production in Selected Japanese Cities by Industry,” June 30 1944, frames 734-37, ibid.
OSS - Office of Strategic Services was the precursor to today’s CIA.
COA - Committee of Operations Analysis
(2) 1994 Guinness Book of Records
The Hiroshima bombing resulted in 155,200 deaths including radiation deaths within a year.
(3) 1995 Information Please Almanac
In the invasion of Okinawa 110,000 Japanese troops died, 100,000 (perhaps 150,000) civilians were killed, and there were 50,000 American casualties. (American casualties normally included 4 or 5 wounded for every man killed.)
(3a) The Almanac stated 170,000 were killed in the 03/10/1945 Tokyo raid. “It was the most devastating single bombing of a city in history, and it killed more people in one day than either atomic bomb…”
30
The Atomic Bomb was not needed to end WWII
2015 10 22
Yalta Conference 2/4-11/1945 – Stalin had committed to joining the war with Japan two or three months after victory in Europe (5/8/1945). Stalin joined the war at midnight the morning of August 9th before the bombing of Nagasaki. He could not have prepared for his invasion of Manchuria and the Kuril Islands in just three days.
After the success of Trinity on 7/16, Truman attempted to stall Russia’s entrance into the war with Japan.
Truman and Secretary of State Byrnes cut the guarantees for the Emperor out of paragraph 12 of the Potsdam Declaration 7/26/1945. The Potsdam Conference was held from 7/17 to 8/2.
Truman’s journal opined the Japanese would not accept the declaration without these guarantees.
A few days after the A-bombings, we informed the Japanese that Unconditional Surrender would not require the overthrow of the Emperor.
My conclusions – Japan was already near defeat, Russia’s entrance into the war with Japan, and guarantees for the Emperor in an otherwise unconditional surrender - would all have combined to bring about Japan’s surrender. Truman refused to allow these factors to end the war. We bombed Hiroshima before Russia declared war on Japan 8/8, and before we acquiesced in the retention of the Emperor.
Delaying the atomic bombings one month would have cost us almost nothing and could have saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians. I submit Truman knew the war was ending and was more concerned with influencing Stalin. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the beginning of the Truman Doctrine.
Source: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1149003
Hiroshima: Historians Reassess
By Gar Alperovitz
Foreign Policy
No. 99 (Summer 1995), pp. 15-34
Published by: Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLC http://www.jstor.org/publisher/wpni
DOI: 10/2307/1149003
I submit, long before Hiroshima, Japanese leadership had become inured to the terror bombing of Japanese cities. The 3/10/1945 bombing of 1/5th of Tokyo took three hours and forty-five minutes; the bombing of Hiroshima took an instant, but the results were similar.
The Soviet’s successful invasion of Manchuria was a far more significant factor in Japan’s decision to surrender. The Japanese did not surrender until 8/15 while the Soviets were penetrating deep into Manchuria rolling over the Japanese Kwantung Army of 713,000.
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3 Intentional Dysfunction in the Occupation of Iraq
2006 01 15
Gross errors that continue uncorrected indicate those errors were not honest mistakes but were, in fact, intentional. I suspect Mr. Bush does not want to win this war; he wants and has created continuing instability to rationalize an unending occupation. Mr. Sharon did the same in the West Bank. One difference between these two leaders is that Bush insists on
“staying the course” while Sharon was changing his course, though I am sure he still preferred a greater Israel. If I am wrong about Bush’s intentions, he is just incompetent. Intentionally and/or incompetently, Bush has created a decrepit, dependent Iraq and facilitated the creation of an insurgency that could be as unending as this occupation.
I believe the following combine to indicate intention rather than mere incompetence:
The Bush campaign and his early Administration denounced America’s involvement in peacekeeping and nation-building, suggesting the Administration is philosophically opposed to rebuilding Iraq.
In 2002, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld closed the Army War College’s
“Peacekeeping Institute” which trained officers in post-conflict issues (5/12/2003 Newsweek p.32), despite grave need in Afghanistan and the then probable, future need in Iraq.
Planning – The Pentagon did not adequately plan for post-war operations even though it was placed in charge of both invading Iraq and rebuilding Iraq after the war (10/6/2003
Newsweek). A 7/21/2002 memo to Mr. Blair and his top advisors in anticipation of the 7/23/2002 “Downing Street Memo” meeting stated, “A post-war occupation of Iraq could lead to a protracted and costly nation-building exercise… As already made clear, the US
military plans are virtually silent on this point.” (6/12/2005 SDUT p. A2 by Walter Pincus Washington Post) One month before the US invasion, three State Department bureau chiefs warned of “serious planning gaps for post-conflict public security and humanitarian assistance.” (8/9/2005 SDUT p. A2) A Rand Corp study of US military operations in Iraq prepared for Mr. Rumsfeld concluded “no planning was undertaken to ensure the security of the Iraqi people.” (4/1/2005 SDUT p. A2 from the Washington Post) (a)
Planning - The Pentagon ignored extensive State Department studies on how to achieve stability after an invasion, administer a postwar government, and rebuild the economy (6/12/2005 SDUT p. A2). The State Department had completed a yearlong $5 million Iraq reconstruction plan called “The Future of Iraq.” Retired Lt. General Jay Garner was the first head of Iraq’s postwar administration, but he did not find out about this plan until just a few weeks before the war began in March. After which he brought in Tom Warrick, the primary author of the plan. (11/26/2003 11:44 AM EST by Michael McDonough AP) As directed by VP Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld ordered Garner to cut 16 of 20 State Department officials from his roster. They were deemed soft on the UN and Arabs. One of them was Thomas Warrick.
(10/6/2003 Newsweek)
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After the end of formal hostilities, there were not enough American forces in Iraq to provide security for themselves let alone security for Iraqi civilians. Most of our military leaders wanted 400,000 troops; Rumsfeld insisted on about half that number (2/9/04 Newsweek p.35). 17 of 24 government ministries were allowed to be looted. The oil ministry, of course, was well protected. Samarra has had to be taken four times (9/26/2005 Time). I suspect Samarra is much more damaged now than it was after the first time it was taken.
Other Iraqi cities have suffered the same fate. We could clear, but we could not hold and rebuild. Retaking cities also costs us more American and Iraqi lives. We have never had enough troops. (b)
It would be ludicrous to wait for senior military commanders to tell us when we can leave Iraq.
These are the same senior commanders in place and silent while Bush continually said he would send more troops if senior commanders requested them. They never requested the necessary number of troops. If they had, they would have lost their jobs.
Ammunition dumps all over Iraq were left unsecured, giving insurgents access to unlimited supplies of arms and weapons. As of 10/2004 400,000 tons of munitions had been destroyed or were to be destroyed. The military estimated an additional minimum of 250,000 tons remained unaccounted for (10/30/2004 SDUT p. A2 Reuters and AP). Also, in 10/2004 103
major weapons dumps had been identified, yet due to troop shortages only a handful were under regular watch (10/27/04 Salon by David Morris/10/27/04 Slate by Fred Kaplan). In the early days of the war, International Atomic Energy Agency IAEA Director Mohamed El Baradei urged the US military to secure Tuwaitha, Iraq’s dormant but largest nuclear facility.
It remained unsecured and was looted (5/17/2003 SDUT p. A2 by Dafna Linzer AP). The Administration not only failed to secure these sites but also refused to let full international inspections resume after the March 2003 invasion - inspections which might have helped secure these sites and their weapons. (c)
After less than a month, 4/21 to 5/12/2003, General Garner was fired. He believes he was fired for wanting early elections and opposing privatization (3/18/2004 Guardian by David Leigh). Garner had also allowed some low-level Baath party bureaucrats to keep their jobs and planned to call up half of the former Iraqi Army to provide security and help with reconstruction (11/13/2003 Military.com by David T Pyne).
In 5/2003 Mr. L. Paul Bremer, who replaced General Garner, issued his de-Baathification decree eliminating roughly the top six layers of Iraq’s bureaucracy. Senior Baathist leaders, senior military leaders, and criminals should not be allowed in the new government, but keeping a large portion of Baathists out of government would be ludicrous given a quarter of Iraq’s working age population were Baathists (4/24/2004 SDUT p. A18 AP). This decree has kept Iraq’s most capable and experienced leadership out of the governance and reconstruction of Iraq.
On 5/23/2003 Mr. Bremer issued Order No. 2 which formally disbanded the Iraqi Army (2/7/2005 Newsweek). It was an “insane” decision, said retired Marine General Joe Hoar who commanded US forces in the Middle East from 1991-1994 (12/30/2005 SDUT by 33
Rogers and Liewer). Without more American troops, this army provided the only other way to provide peace and security for the people of Iraq.
On 5/16/2003, five days after arriving in Baghdad, Bremer assembled the top American officials in Baghdad. Upon hearing of Bremer’s de-Baathification plans, the CIA’s Baghdad station chief responded, “Well, that’s 30,000 to 50,000 pissed-off Baathists you’re driving underground.” In response to disbanding the Iraqi Army, the station chief said, “That’s another 350,000 Iraqis you’re pissing off, and they’ve got guns. (10/6/2003 Newsweek) According to one official who attended the meeting, Bremer replied: “I don’t have any choice… Those are my
instructions…The president told me that de-Baathification is more important.” (11/24/2003
Newsweek)
De-Baathification and disbanding the Iraqi army are widely held to be the gravest errors made in postwar Iraq. The Administration has done too little too late to correct these errors. US officials encouraged former Baathists to run in December’s election, saying it was one way to bring marginalized Sunnis into the new government (12/12/2005 SDUT p. A2), but de-Baathification is already codified in Iraq’s constitution and laws. Iraq’s courts and electoral commission required affected Sunni parties to take 90 former Baathists from their candidate lists before the 12/15/2005 elections would be certified (1/1/2006 SDUT by Straziuso AP). A generation of Baathist oppression has taught Shiites and Kurds - it is better to oppress than be oppressed.
Israelis appear to have learned the same lesson. The lesson learned should have been - all oppression is wrong. (d)
Inadequate Intel – On 6/13/2003 hundreds of American intelligence officers were transferred from Iraq to Florida, leaving only 30 Intel officers in Iraq for counter insurgency work (9/26/2005 Time p.47). In addition, the Administration’s fixation on finding WMD’s diverted precious Intel resources that could have helped thwart the fledgling insurgency. The problem continues. A recently retired four star general with Middle East experience stated,
“We don’t have enough intelligence analysts working on this problem. The Defense Intelligence Agency DIA puts most of its emphasis and assets on Iran, North Korea, and China. The Iraqi insurgency is simply not top priority, and that’s a damn shame.”
(9/26/2005 Time)
Minimal Reconstruction - Only 13 billion of 30 billion that Congress allocated for rebuilding Iraq and training its security forces had been spent through 8/2005, according to the Government Accounting Office GAO (12/30/2005 SDUT by Dreazen Wall Street Journal).
Billions of dollars have been lost to corruption or wasted, according to US government reports (12/9/2005 Christian Science Monitor by La Franchi). More than one quarter of Iraq’s work force is unemployed (12/28/2005 by Palmer Newhouse News). 25% of reconstruction funds have been spent on security according to federal auditors (12/24/2005
SDUT p. A19 by Castaneda AP). Because the security situation is so dire, efforts to train local ministries are hamstrung by a shortage of experts from Energy, Treasury, and other US
agencies. Lt. Gen. John Vines, who commands US forces in Iraq under General Casey, recently asked a congressional delegation: “Where the hell is the rest of the US
government?” (12/26/2006 Newsweek p. 42)
34
The Administration has refused international help rather than lose sole control of Iraq. Just weeks after the end of formal hostilities, France and Germany offered to help rebuild Iraq under UN auspices (4/19/2004 Newsweek), but the UN was not given any significant role until 3/2004, when it was needed to broker a compromise on establishing an interim government and to help with future elections. In handling postwar Iraq, senior American officials in Washington avoided any real conversations with UN officials who had been involved in Bosnia, Kosovo, East Timor, etc. (12/19/2005 Newsweek by Fareed Zakaria)
Iraqification - The US commanding General in Iraq George Casey opined in October that only one Iraqi battalion was capable of fighting without US help (SDUT 12/11/2005 AP). It has taken more than two and a half years to make one battalion of 500 men battle ready. 500
from the combination of new troops, Peshmergas from Iraqi Kurdistan, Shia militiamen from South Iraq, and troops from the former Iraqi army. If 400,000 troops are necessary to maintain security, at this rate, we will be able to leave Iraq in 2000 years.
The European based International Crisis Group has defined what it calls Iraq’s “vicious circle.”
“Lack of security leads to lack of reconstruction, which leads to lack of jobs, which leads back to lack of security.” (10/17/2004 SDUT p. A2 by Charles Hanley AP) This circle is also unending occupation causing insurgency causing occupation. We can and must break this circle.
“More than a dozen current and former intelligence officers knowledgeable about Iraq spoke with Time in recent weeks (prior to 9/26) to share details about the conflict. They voiced their growing frustration with a war that they feel was not properly anticipated by the Bush Administration, a war fought with insufficient resources, a war that almost all of them now believe is not winnable militarily.” (9/26/05 Time p. 46) (e) We cannot win with just military action, but we could co-opt the Sunni nationalist insurgency (f) with political action. We could even politically co-opt al-Qaeda in Iraq, but that would require actions beyond Iraq. We would have to address most of the injustice in American foreign policy.
Conclusion
Mr. Bush could demonstrate he did not intentionally create this instability by meeting the legitimate political demands of the Sunni nationalist insurgency. I believe elections will not significantly appease this insurgency as discrimination against Baathists will continue, and the American occupation will continue with fewer troops but with no exit strategy and no timetable for a full withdrawal (g). If we can set a short timetable for establishing democratic institutions, we can certainly set a longer timetable for re-establishing an army. Unlike Mr. Bush, who will give nothing more than spin on these issues, these insurgents will adopt a genuine two track strategy combining military and political action.
An exit strategy - Vote for Congressmen who will impeach this President. Impeach. Re-baathify. Set a timetable for a full withdrawal. Send enough troops. When the time’s up, declare victory and come home. Lastly, value American ideals and never again commit unprovoked aggression. Alternately, make the next war civil war. God damn an American Empire.
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Primary Sources: SDUT – San Diego Union Tribune newspaper
10/6/2003 Newsweek
9/26/2005 Time magazine
(a) Planning:
A postwar self-evaluation by the 3rd Infantry division found, “Despite the virtual certainty that the military would accomplish the regime change, there was no plan for oversight and reconstruction, even after the division arrived in Baghdad.” Further, “Because of the refusal to acknowledge occupier status, commanders did not initially take measures available to occupying powers, such as imposing curfews, directing civilians to return to work, and controlling the local governments and populace.” (11/28/2003 SDUT p. A2 by John Lumpkin and Dafna Linzer AP) (b) We have never had enough troops:
…Paul Bremer, the senior US official in Iraq till 6/2004, told Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in a May 2004 memo that a far larger number of US troops were needed to effectively fight the insurgency but his advice was rejected…
Bremer said in an NBC News interview Sunday that his memo to Rumsfeld suggested a half a million troops were needed – more than three times the number at the time…
Many critics, including some leading members of Congress, continued to urge President Bush to increase the number of troops in Iraq as the insurgency persisted.
(1/10/2006 by Robert Burns AP)
When Senator John McCain made his first trip to Iraq after the capture of Baghdad, he encountered a dozen junior officers of the American and British forces who told him in vivid terms how they were hampered by the shortage of troops. (11/20/2005 SDUT by David S
Broder Washington Post)
Senator McCain said the Bush administration must make broad changes in its strategy to confront the insurgency in Iraq and commit more troops and resources to the effort… “Our forces cannot hold the ground indefinitely, and when they move on to fight other battles, the insurgent ranks replenish and strongholds fill again…Our troops must then re-enter the same area and re-fight the same battle.” (11/10/05 19:56 ET Reuters by Vicki Allen)
“…it’s grimly apparent that US troop levels in Iraq are inadequate to defeat the insurgency or, apparently, to significantly diminish terrorist violence. Field commanders complain privately that they have far too few soldiers and marines to defend cleared areas.” (8/28/2005 SDUT
Editorial by Robert J. Caldwell)
Thomas Hammes, a retired Marine colonel who has written a book on anti-insurgency tactics, said ground commanders have been saying that they don’t have enough troops to cover the country, despite the Pentagon’s insistence that they do. (8/8/2005 07:06 USA TODAY by Kimberly Johnson)
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In Anbar province, Col H R McMaster author of “Dereliction of Duty” gave his officers permission to speak with brutal frankness. One of them told a reporter from the Knight Ridder newspaper chain, “There’s simply not enough forces here.” (7/4/2005 Newsweek p.26)
“It’s not too late for the United States to turn its fortunes around in Iraq, but it will take a long-term commitment, more honesty about wartime setbacks and many more boots on the ground, say local Marines and global military experts.” (6/29/2005 SDUT by Rick Rogers) Iraq’s ambassador to the United Nations, Samir Sumaiada’ie, predicted to The Scotsman that unless the US and Britain added “a considerable amount” of troops to Iraq, the insurgency would grow. (9/20/2004 Newsweek)
During the planning, General Franks and his team expected that 150,000 international troops would join US forces in the post war phase. They never materialized. (8/1/2004 SDUT Parade).
“Had the proper number of forces been in place early on, the looting that did so much damage to Iraq’s infrastructure might have been stopped, munitions dumps could have been secured, economic reconstruction would have moved ahead more easily, and more men and resources could have been devoted to the training of Iraqi forces.” (5/5/2004 SDUT by Robert Kagan and William Kristol Weekly Standard)
“We do need and welcome more foreign troops into Iraq and there will be more foreign troops into Iraq,” Bush told reporters in Seattle on Friday (8/26/2003 SDUT p. A8) (c) Ammunition dumps were unsecured:
A 5/27/2005 report by the UN’s Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Agency UNMOVIC
cited evidence of looting at 109 of 378 sealed sites examined via satellite photos (6/9/2005
SDUT p. A2). UNMOVIC could only study satellite surveillance as the Administration will not allow them in Iraq.
Al Qaqaa - “…an Iraqi informant reported to the CIA that he saw people looting buildings at Al Qaqaa State Establishment, a huge fortress where hundreds of tons of deadly explosive were stored. The CIA distributed alerts throughout the intelligence community and to military units in Iraq. However, according to a source who was briefed on the incident, the US military never sent in any troops to frighten off the looters and secure the facility.” (11/8/2004 Newsweek p.8) In October 2004 the UN nuclear agency warned that insurgents may have obtained 377 tons of extremely potent conventional explosives it confirmed were looted from the Al Qaqaa facility.
Iraqi officials had reported to the agency that explosives had vanished because of, “theft and looting… due to lack of security.” (SDUT 10/26/2004 by William J Kole and Tini Tran AP).
“…Al Qaqaa, was supposed to be under US military control but is now a no-man’s land, still picked over by looters as recently as yesterday…The IAEA publicly warned about the danger of these explosives before the war, and after the invasion it specifically told US officials about the need to keep the explosives secured, European diplomats said in interviews last week.”
(10/25/2004 SDUT p. A1 by Glanz, Broad, and Sanger NY Times News Service)
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(d) Re-Baathification and Re-hiring former Army Officers
In a reversal of policy, US officials in Iraq are encouraging some former members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party to run in Thursday’s (12/15/05) elections, saying it was one way to bring marginalized Sunni Muslims into the new government… Until now, the US has led calls for purging Baathists from the government… It is widely acknowledged that thrusting a large segment of the population into unemployment fueled the mostly Sunni insurgency. (12/12/2005
SDUT p. A2)
The Iraqi government called yesterday for the return of junior officers from the disbanded army of Saddam Hussein… Under yesterday’s announcement, any former officers up to the rank of major are eligible for reinstatement by applying this month at recruitment centers in six cities across Iraq. (11/3/2005 SDUT by Edward Wongf NY Times)
Gen. Babaker Zebari, the Iraqi Army chief of staff, announced that former soldiers below the rank of lieutenant colonel would be welcomed back into the ranks – so long as they are not high-ranking Baath Party members. (2/21/2005 Newsweek p. 28)
Iraq’s Defense Ministry said yesterday that as part of its anti-insurgent efforts, it has asked thousands of former military officers who served under former president Saddam Hussein –
including members of the Republican Guard and officers with a rank of lieutenant colonel or lower who were not top Baath Party members - to return to service. (2/13/2005 SDUT by Struck Washington Post)
Bremer announced a shift in policy. Bremer stated Americans would begin reinstating many of the “honorable men” who served as senior officers in Hussein’s army and he also pledged to hire thousands of teachers and university professors who were low level Baath party members and who had gone through a vetting process. (4/24/2004 SDUT p. A18 AP)
Bremer quickly changed course and began cash handouts to former soldiers while trying to reconstitute the Iraqi Army and police. (10 6 2003 Newsweek p. 37)
This reconstitution apparently did not include any of the officer corps, see above, although Bremer claimed only 9,000 generals were precluded from reinstatement (2/13/2005 SDUT p.
G5). Whatever efforts were undertaken, they were ineffective.
(e) We cannot win militarily:
“War is the extension of politics by other means.” - Clausewitz
Politics is the extension of war by other means.
…US diplomats, convinced that the insurgency cannot be defeated by military means alone, see the elections as a vital chance to find a political solution … (12/19/2005 Newsweek p. 46)
“We’ve been pounding this with a military hammer, but we all agree that the solution will be political,” says one infantry colonel on the front lines. (10/3/2005 SDUT by David Ignatius Washington Post)
In the middle of 2004 Ambassador Negroponte replaced Bremer. “Negroponte set up a joint military-diplomatic team to review the situation in the country. The consensus was that 38
things were a mess, that little had been accomplished on either the civilian or the military side and that there was no effective plan for dealing with the insurgency. The new team concluded the insurgency could not be defeated militarily - but that it might be divided.”
(9 26 2005 Time p. 52)
“…history teaches that insurgencies are defeated by a combination of political and military means.” (8/28/2005 SDUT Editorial by Robert J Caldwell)
“…military commanders interviewed by Newsweek all concede that eliminating the Iraqi insurgency by military means is probably impossible. The goal is to train enough Iraqis to replace US troops, while the insurgency is pacified by political means.” (7/4/2005 Newsweek p.
26)
A US military official in Baghdad and others said in interviews that insurgents have enough popular support among nationalist Iraqis angered by the presence of US force that they cannot be militarily defeated. (7/9/2004 SDUT p. A1 by Jim Krane AP)
(f) Insurgents:
85% of attacks in the country are in four provinces including Baghdad (11 20 2005 SDUT p. A2) There are 18 provinces in Iraq, 4 with insurgents primarily in 7 major cities.
Classified CIA and State Dep assessments completed in May – Foreign fighters make up only a fraction of the Iraqi insurgency, perhaps as little as 5 percent.
(7/5/2005 SDUT p. A2 by Warren Strobel Knight Ridder)
Air Force Col. Dewey G Ford, a spokesman said in an e-mail, The US military in Iraq believes it faces at most 20,000 active insurgents, the vast majority of them Sunni.
(7/2/2005 SDUT p. A2 by Mariam Fam AP)
Since 2003, fewer than 10 percent of more than 500 suicide attacks have been carried out by Iraqis, according to one defense official…
“I still think 80 percent of the insurgency, the day-to-day activity, is Iraqi – the roadside bombings, mortars, direct weapons fire, rifle fire, automatic weapons fire,” said Kenneth Katzman, a Middle East expert with the Congressional Research service, which advises US
lawmakers.
(7/1/2005 SDUT p. A2 by Quinn and Shrader AP)
US military analysts say Sunni Muslim Imams can call upon part time fighters to boost forces as high as 20,000.
At the orders of Gen John Abizaid, the US commander of Mideast operations, Army analysts looked closely for evidence that Iraq’s insurgency was adopting extreme Islamist goals, the official said. Analysts learned that ridding Iraq of US troops was the motivator for most insurgents, not the formation of an Islamic state.
(7/9/2004 SDUT by Krane AP)
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A reconciliation council in Cairo backed by the Arab League in a consensus that included about 100 Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish leaders, many of whom will run in the election on Dec 15th, signed a closing memorandum yesterday that “demands a withdrawal of foreign troops on a specified timetable, dependent on an immediate national program for rebuilding the security forces.”
(11/22/2005 SDUT p. A1 by Fattah NY Times News Service)
“Our position is unchanged,” Sheik Mohammed Bashar al-Faydhi, spokesman for the hard-line clerical Association of Muslim Scholars, told reporters yesterday, “We will not participate in the political process as long as the occupation exists,” although he suggested that might change if Washington offered a timetable for withdrawal.
(11/14/2005 SDUT p. A2 by Mroue AP)
In June one-third of the 275 assembly members signed a petition asking the US to set a timetable for withdrawal. (9/14/2005 SDUT by Youssef Knight Ridder)
Baathists have several demands, chief among them the restoration of the Baath Party. “Again, here we have shifted,” the diplomat says. “They would be willing to rename the party, but they believe that they should be allowed to contest for votes in Iraq and be a political play in the country.” They also want a clear statement from the United States that its forces will leave Iraq
– not right away, but within some reasonable time frame…
(8/8/2005 Newsweek by Fareed Zakaria)
…those who approach the (US) embassy are usually academics, businessmen, or midlevel officials of the former ruling Baath party. Their demands center on paying pensions for former military officers, rehiring former officers in the new Iraqi army, or providing a timetable for the withdrawal of US led troops. Such overtures have increased since the Jan 30 elections…
(7/2/2005 SDUT p. A2 by Mariam Fam AP)
Insurgents represented by the new National Council for Unity and Construction of Iraq want U.S.
troops to leave in one to three years according to spokesman Ayham al-Samarie (6/30/05 SDUT
p. A2 by Patrick Quinn AP).
…some Sunni leaders have said they will fully join the political process only after the United States announces when it will pull out its troops.
(4/2/2005 SDUT by Knickmeyer Washington Post)
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The Al Sadr Rebellion
We provoked and then aggravated the first al-Sadr rebellion. In 2003, Cleric Abdel-Majid al-Khoei was killed and an arrest warrant was issued for Muqtada al-Sadr, the leader of the Mahdi army. American forces planned to arrest al-Sadr in the fall, but the plan was postponed. On 3/25/04 Mr. Bremer announced Iraq’s interim government would not control Iraq’s newly formed Army (1). Shortly thereafter, Bremer ordered al-Sadr’s newspaper, Al Hawza, closed for two months for inciting violence. On Saturday 4/3rd, al-Sadr’s top lieutenant Mustafa al-Yacoubi was arrested for charges connected with al-Khoei’s murder. He has since been released. (2) On Sunday 4/4th, the rebellion began. On 4/14, in the middle of the insurrection, President Bush said Israel should not have to return to its pre-1967 borders, and that Palestinian refugees should be resettled only in a Palestinian state, not in Israel proper (3).
It was claimed the Coalition Provisional Authority CPA did not just arrest al-Sadr as it wanted to coopt him even during his insurgency. But, why would we want the political participation of a murderer? Didn’t we just overthrow another Iraqi murderer? These actions may have been the result of mere incompetence, but we could not have done a better job, provoking and aggravating this rebellion, if we had done so intentionally.
1) 3/26/2004 SDUT p. A2 by John F Burns and Thom Shanker NY Times
2) 4/19/2004 Newsweek
3) 4/26/2004 Newsweek p. 37 and the 4/15/2004 SDUT p. A1 by Elisabeth Bumiller NY Times Ahmed Chalabi
Chalabi is the “piece of corruption” that helped Bush spin us into this war as head of the exiled Iraqi National Congress. The INC provided flawed Intel. Chalabi was also the neo cons pick to lead Iraq after the war. He allegedly fell out with the Administration in mid-2004 when he clashed with Bremer over how much sovereignty Iraqis would get on 6/30/2004 and was suspected of sharing Intel with Iran. In the first “Governing Council,” Chalabi was head of the economic and finance committee. He also chaired the De-Baathification Commission. Despite this alleged falling out, he continued to hold high office. He was a deputy prime minister in the Constitutional Assembly.
I suspect Chalabi is still Bush’s man in Iraq, and the alleged falling out was nothing more than spin to make Chalabi more palatable to Iraqis. If true, this plan has failed. Iraqi election officials said, with 95 percent of a preliminary tally from the vote completed, Chalabi remained almost 8,000 votes short of the 40,000 minimum needed for him or his bloc to win a single seat in the National Assembly (12/27/2005 SDUT p. A8). Chalabi should now be done. If he ends up holding office in the new government, it will be a testament to the new government’s corruption.
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3.1 Iraq War’s WMD weapons of mass deception 2003
The real WMD were the Bush Administration’s lies used to rationalize the Iraq war.
These pieces were added as an afterthought. The issues have been thoroughly dealt with, but I thought a book about our lies should include these past, egregious lies. We are still suffering the consequences of these lies. I offer them as a partial review and as examples of the process necessary to uncover the truth. They were written before Scooter Libby was convicted of outing Valerie Plame, Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s wife, and before David Kay concluded there were no WMDs in Iraq.
The Uranium Lie
7/23/2003
As of 7/14/2003, the Administration claimed there is additional British intelligence supporting the uranium allegation, claimed London has not made this intelligence available, claimed it did not know the source of this intelligence, and admitted it was not trying to determine the source (7/15/2003 UT). This week’s Newsweek (7/28/2003) noted the existence of a British report that the Iraqis were trying to buy uranium from several East African countries. I believe if this intelligence were significant, the U.S. would already have it.
The Administration’s claims are incredible given what we now know about the uranium allegation. The Italians informed the U.S. of the Niger documents two years ago. Ambassador Joseph Wilson reviewed the uranium allegation for the CIA in February 2002 and found it to be baseless. His review was independent of the Niger documents. The CIA station chief in Rome was given the Niger documents in October 2002 and apparently tossed them out. The International Atomic Energy Agency was given the Niger documents in February 2003 and within two hours determined them to be forgeries. (Primary source: 7/28/2003 Newsweek) Given all the intelligence and analysis showing the allegation to be baseless and the current controversy over the allegation, it is unbelievable the Administration has not gone after any and all intelligence supporting the allegation. I suspect in fact they have known all along - the allegation is baseless.
Even if we eventually find WMD, the intelligence was manipulated.
Request your local newspaper, your Senators, and your Representative demand the Administration either admit there is no significant, additional, British intelligence or make public that intelligence.
Sources:
7/15/2003 San Diego Union Tribune UT and 7/28/2003 Newsweek
"National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice is holding to the Niger story, noting that the British government now says other, unspecified intelligence supports the uranium allegation.”
(7/15 UT)
“…London hasn't supplied Washington with any such information, Rice acknowledged.
Likewise, Baute's office has received nothing from the British three weeks after asking for the purported independent evidence, said sources at the UN agency's headquarters in Vienna..."
(7/15 UT) (Jacques Baute is with the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency.) 42
"Amid the finger-pointing, the episode forced the administration to concede it did not know the source of the British intelligence - and, in fact, was not trying to determine the source." (7/15
UT)
Iraq al-Qaeda Connection
7/19/2003
Lie: [State of the union address 1/28/2003] “Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al-Qaeda.” (7/13/2003 UT - San Diego Union Tribune) Truth: “There was no significant pattern of cooperation between Iraq and the al-Qaeda terrorist operation,” former State Department intelligence official Greg Thielmann said. Intelligence agencies agreed on the “lack of a meaningful connection to al-Qaeda” and said so to the White House and Congress, Thielmann said. “That (Hussein) was promoting al-Qaeda is absurd,”
Cannistraro said. (Vince Cannistraro is a former CIA counterterrorism chief) (7/13 UT) Truth: “Abu Zubaydah, a Qaeda planner and recruiter until his capture in March 2002, told his questioners last year that the idea of working with Mr. Hussein’s government had been discussed among Qaeda leaders, but that Osama bin Laden had rejected such proposals, according to an official who has read the Central Intelligence Agency’s classified report on the interrogation. In his debriefing, Mr. Zubaydah said Mr. Bin Laden had vetoed the idea because he did not want to be beholden to Mr. Hussein, the official said.” (James Risen 6/8 New York Times) Truth: “The Bush administration pressed the CIA in the run-up to the war on Iraq to look for evidence of close cooperation between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, but the agency found no proof, according to an internal CIA intelligence review.” (7/4 UT)
Truth: “The UN terrorism committee has found no evidence linking Iraq and al-Qaeda.” (7/2
UT) (This is a post war finding backing these other prewar findings.)
See Chapter 2 paragraph 4.
WMD
7/19/2003
Lie: [President Bush 3/17/2003] “Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.” (John W Dean 6/6 FindLaw’s Writ, William Rivers Pitt 6/3/2003 Truthout) Lie: [Secretary Rumsfeld 3/30/2003] “We know where (Iraq’s WMD) are. They’re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south, and north somewhat.” (Christopher Scheer 6/27 AlterNet.org, dod.gov/news/Mar2003)
Truth: “Jacoby (Director) said his agency (DIA) concurred in an intelligence community consensus last fall that Iraq had a program for weapons of mass destruction. But the DIA was unable to pinpoint any locations.” (6/7 UT) (Vice Admiral Lowell Jacoby is the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).)
Truth: “As the military began to gear up for an invasion, top planners at Central Command tried to get a fix from the CIA on WMD sites they could take out with bombs and missiles. After 43
much badgering, says an informed military source, the CIA allowed the CENTCOM planners to see what the agency had on WMD sites. ‘It was crap,’ said a CENTCOM planner… When the military visited these sites after the war, they found nothing but rubble. No traces of WMD.”
(Newsweek 6/9)
Lie: [President Bush 10/7/2002 in Cincinnati] “The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program…” (John W Dean 6/6 FindLaw’s Writ, Christopher Scheer 6/27
AlterNet.org)
Truth: “In two reports to Powell, INR concluded there was no reliable evidence that Iraq had restarted a nuclear program at all.” (Newsweek 6/9) (INR is the State Department’s bureau of intelligence and research.)
Lie: [President Bush 10/7] “Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.” (John W Dean 6/6 FindLaw’s Writ, Christopher Scheer 6/27 AlterNet.org) “Powell did keep a hedged endorsement of the aluminum tubes (in his 2/5 address to the UN).”
(Newsweek 6/9)
Truth: “The Department of Energy concluded that the tubes were the wrong specification to be used in a centrifuge, the equipment used to enrich uranium. The State Department’s INR
concluded that the tubes were meant to be used for a multiple-rocket-launching system.”
(Newsweek 6/9)
Lie: [The President’s sixteen words in his state of the union address 1/28/2003] “The British government has learned that Saddam recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”
Truth: “‘They knew the Niger story was a flat out lie,’ states the former ambassador who investigated the charges.” (James Goldsborough 7/7 UT, New Republic as reported by Christopher Scheer 6/27 AlterNet.org) (The former ambassador James Wilson went to Niger in February 2002 at the request of the CIA to assess the intelligence report (7/6 UT).)
George W. Bush’s CIA Briefer:
Bush and Cheney Falsely Presented WMD Intelligence to Public 2015 05 19
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/05/michael-morell-bush-cheney-iraq-war
Michael Morell was a longtime CIA official who eventually became the agency’s deputy director and acting director. During the pre-invasion period, he served as Bush’s intelligence briefer.
Appearing on MSNBC’s Hardball on Tuesday night, Morrell made it clear: The Bush-Cheney administration publicly misrepresented the intelligence related to Iraq’s supposed WMD
program and Saddam’s alleged links to Al Qaeda.
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3.2 ISIS came out of the Iraq War
2015 06 04
The current lies:
Middle Easterners have been in sectarian conflict for millennia.
President Obama is responsible for the rise of ISIS because he failed to keep our troops in Iraq, and he failed to adequately support Syrian rebels.
Sectarianism - There was little historic, sectarian conflict in the Middle East before the breakup of the Ottoman Empire. “The ‘problem of sectarianism’ is something that has arisen in modern times…” (1)
Religion in politics - The Mosque was one of the few places in European colonies and oppressive Middle Eastern regimes where political action was tolerated. Islamists were the only politicians outside the power structures.
Iraq - Shiite Iraqis fought for Iraq in the Iraq Iran War despite appeals by their coreligionists in Iran. Their greater loyalty was to Iraq over Shiism. (1b)
I submit George W Bush’s ultimate purpose in the Iraq War was to create sectarianism, chaos, and perpetual war. He did not just stop with conquering Iraq. Within months he had thrown out the Baathists, the only people then capable of administering Iraq, and disbanded the Iraqi Army, the only institution then capable of maintaining order.
Haji Bakr was a primary strategist behind ISIS (2). Bakr had been an Iraqi Colonel working for Saddam Hussein in the Intelligence Service of the Iraqi Air Defense Forces. He may have been one of the people we should have thrown out, but we did not have to throw out all his subordinates freeing them to follow men like Bakr.
Sunday’s neo con, talking heads now claim the rise of ISIS was the fault of Obama because he took the troops out of Iraq in 2011. It is true he got us out of Iraq, and if we had kept a never-ending occupation force in Anbar province, we might have kept disenfranchised Sunnis from effectively rebelling against al Maliki. Apparently, to maintain the new world order and, of course, to create profits for our war plutocrats and their cronies, we should aggress against and occupy the world.
Syria – Our war mongers maintain another reason ISIS is ascendant was Obama’s failure to support moderate Syrian rebels in mid-2012 early in their civil war. They fail to acknowledge Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia came together in Istanbul in 2012 to coordinate the training and arming of Syrian rebels (3). Most of those resources and rebels eventually went to ISIS.
Further, Americans trained and armed the Iraqi army yet an IS force of 1,000 was able to overwhelm an Iraqi army force of 30,000 and take Mosul, Iraq (4). If there is no political solution, there will be no lasting military solution in Iraq or Syria.
Condemn the lies and speak the truth:
George W Bush was the US President responsible for the rise of ISIS.
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Bush did not go to war because of false Intel, he and Cheney created the false Intel to go to war. (5)
Bush and Cheney used torture to falsely connect Saddam Hussein with al Qaeda. (See Chapter 2, paragraph 4.)
What are we fighting for?
Two million Vietnamese died to delay our defeat in Vietnam. How many more millions would have died for our victory? Hundreds of thousands died because of the Iraq war. How many more hundreds of thousands would have to die for a complete victory?
We fought against great evil but for nothing.
ARVN would not fight because we fought for a corrupt, military government in South Vietnam.
ARVN knew it was not worth fighting for. We eliminated Saddam Hussein only to replace him with al Maliki who refused to enfranchise the Sunnis and was then replaced by ISIS in Anbar Province. What do we offer to replace ISIS? We overthrew Gaddafi in Libya and Islamic Courts Union in Somalia only to replace them with chaos. We have offered no reasonable alternative, from Vietnam to Iraq, and continue to offer nothing but the sweet release of death.
Our neo cons too often claim international problems have military solutions. I submit they are once again partially correct. Given the corruption in our Congress, given these neo cons past abuses of power, and to save tens of thousands of Iranians, we should support a military option against these war mongers.
We will stop losing wars when we stop fighting unjust wars. Stop
Sources:
(1) Great Decisions 2015 by the Foreign Policy Association
(1b) p. 32
(2) http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/islamic-state-files-show-structure-of-islamist-
(3) 10/04/2014 San Diego Union p. B8, “Syria’s Proxy War” by David Ignatius from the Washington Post
(4) 06/21/2014 The Economist p. 47 “Why Iraq’s army crumbled”
(5) http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/05/michael-morell-bush-cheney-iraq-war
2017 I submit, we can now conclude, we fought in the Middle East for our plutocrats’ war profits, for cheap resources/oil, and for the West Bank - we have balkanized the region eliminating most Arab threats to Israel’s future annexation of more of Judea and Samaria.
We serve BB, Big Brother, Bibi Netanyahu. See Section 1.1.
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4 Religion Serves Politics
The false religion of “Greater Israel” Zionism 2011 05 06+
I will make the case in this paper that not only have America’s religions failed to preempt her corruption, they have facilitated her corruption.
Outline:
