“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."
What happened to the elementary intelligence concept of "Need to Know"?
Shoot the little prick!
Yesterday, I asked a basic question: How is it possible that we have a military intelligence system where a PFC can get access to anything near 70,000 to 90,000 documents, all classified SECRET?
A PFC, 22 years old! How did he get a clearance and what was the clearance procedure? How is custody of secret documents maintained in such a manner so that anyone could have access to and copy that many documents?
There is something very wrong here. It is a complete and utter intelligence disaster, regardless of what information was compromised.
Who is the punk ass moon faced private? Meet his fan club:
Since the 1960‘s, the British Establishment has been grossly negligent about protecting its own borders from immigration specifically from lawless states in the Caribbean and radical Muslim countries. Britain today is far worse for the decisions made by the English establishment to value their social and economic interests over those of ordinary Britons.
By every measure: crime, violence, religious radicalization, welfare fraud, drug trafficking and cultural degradation, Britain has been coarsened by decisions to allow unfettered immigration for ideological and commercial interests. Britain experimented with social engineering and its ordinary citizens paid the price for the failure.
David Cameron, the conservative-lite leader, is a patently second rate thinker on a good day, but his trip to Turkey is revealing. Good luck to Britain with what they have with him, but that is their problem. Cameron has decided to give Israel advice.
His lecturing of Israel while catering to Islamist Turkey is based solely on his interest in pursuing British financial interests. There can be many arguments as to the clash of interests between Israel and the Palestinians, but none over the right of Israel to protect itself from destruction by people hostile to her very existence.
Israel has good reason to be skeptical of receiving a lecture from David Cameron.
PM in a humanitarian call for Israel to end its blockade
David Cameron yesterday launched a blistering attack on Israel over its crippling blockade of Gaza.
He accused officials of turning the disputed territory into a prison camp and demanded provisions be allowed in.
In a speech to Turkish business leaders, the PM said: "Humanitarian goods and people must flow in both directions.
"Gaza cannot and must not be allowed to remain a prison camp."
Turkey has felt the full force of Israeli brutality. Nine nationals died when special forces raided a flotilla carrying emergency aid to Gaza in May. Quizzed later on his comments, Mr Cameron insisted the prison description was warranted.
He said: "The fact is we have long supported lifting the blockade and long supported proper humanitarian access."
But the PM called on Turkey to stop supporting Iran with its refusal to back sanctions on Tehran over its nuclear weapons programme. Turkey was one of only two countries to vote against a new round of UN action against Iran.
During his speech in Ankara - with Turkish PM Tayyip Erdogan at his side - he urged officials to put pressure on Iran amid fears it may launch nuclear strikes.
Mr Cameron said: "Let's be frank about this. Iran is enriching uranium to 20% with no industrial logic for what they are doing other than producing a bomb.
"Even if Iran were to complete the deal proposed in their recent agreement with Turkey and Brazil, it would still retain around 50% of its stockpile of low-enriched uranium. So we need Turkey's help now in making it clear to Iran just how serious we are about engaging fully with the international community."
Mr Cameron also said he would push for Turkish membership of the EU and "pave the road" for it to happen.
The PM is angry at the way Euro officials appear to be dragging their heels over the issue, as critics claim Turkey's human rights record is appalling.
Eu chiefs welcomed Mr Cameron's willingness to promote the country's cause. But responding to his "pave the road" comments, one official asked sardonically: "What do you think we've been doing all these years?"
You have a problem. You have a thousand generals spending $700 billion and they cannot keep 76,000 secret documents out of the hands of a PFC. What else can't they do?
What ally, in their right mind, is going to trust your pentagon to share their secrets?
Take a deep breath and start by removing a few stars from the pentagon milky way.
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US Military Investigates Leaked Afghan War Documents Al Pessin 27 July 2010
The United States says it is launching an investigation to find out who leaked tens of thousands of classified documents about the last six years of the war in Afghanistan, one of the largest security breeches in U.S. military history.
A U.S. defense department spokesman, Geoff Morrell, said Monday the military will do what is necessary to determine who is responsible for leaking the information.
Another U.S. official, Colonel Dave Lapan, said it could take the military "days if not weeks" to determine how the 76,000 secret documents released online by the website WikiLeaks could impact the lives of U.S. servicemen and coalition partners. The officials acknowledged the possibility that more leaks are possible.
WikiLeaks says it has more than 91,000 classified documents, including details of civilian casualties allegedly caused by foreign forces carrying out raids against insurgent targets. The documents also appear to raise the possibility that Pakistan's intelligence service has been aiding the Afghan insurgency.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told reporters in London Monday he believes there is evidence of war crimes in the material, but that it would be up to a court of law to determine whether such crimes were committed.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters Monday the leaks were unlawful, but did not contain any broad revelations. He noted that the U.S. has been concerned about civilian casualties and militant safe havens in Pakistan for quite some time.
Pakistan Foreign Ministry spokesman Abdul Basit dismissed allegations that his country aided the Afghan insurgency, calling them "far-fetched and skewed." Pakistan's ambassador to the U.S. Hussain Haqqani said the released documents do not reflect current on-the-ground realities.
A spokesman for Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Monday the Afghan government was "shocked" that the documents were leaked, but insisted most of the information is not new. Waheed Omar told reporters Afghanistan has repeatedly told its international partners about militant sanctuaries along Pakistan's border with the country.
U.S. President Barack Obama's National Security Advisor James Jones noted the documents do not reflect the fact that Mr. Obama last year announced a new strategy with a substantial increase in resources for Afghanistan and a focus on al-Qaida and Taliban safe havens in Pakistan. The chairman of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee, Ike Skelton, echoed the sentiment, saying the "outdated" documents should not be used as a measure of success in Afghanistan.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Monday he hopes the revelations do not damage international efforts in Afghanistan. In Berlin, German Foreign Minster Guido Westerwelle said the new information in the leaked documents should be examined. Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon said such operational leaks could endanger Canadian troops in Afghanistan.
Sherrod: "We Must Stop The White Man And His Uncle Toms ..."
Why would Obama appoint a racist black-Marxist to the USDA, fire her in kneejerk fashion, then grovel on the phone to her, offering her a promotion?
First, a note of heartfelt appreciation for Joan Walsh of Salon. Her moving post on Charles Sherrod - in defense of his wife, Shirley - provided the inspiration required to dust off my Google skills. I simply had to fulfill her stated desire to share the actual words of Civil Rights icon Charles Sherrod with her readers, so touched was I by her profound tribute. And she's been swamped on TV, justifying Shirley Sherrod calling Fox and Andrew Breitbart racist. I can only hope she will be kind enough to direct her readers here, so we can all share his unique wisdom on race relations together, as one. That is, after all, the way it should be, is it not, Joan?
The civil rights heroism of Charles Sherrod
Andrew Breitbart sure picked the wrong people to symbolize black "racism." If there's anyone more clueless about our civil rights history than Breitbart, as well as more abusive to it, I'm challenged to think of who it might be. He tests my commitment to nonviolent social change, but I'll share the work of Charles Sherrod to remember my values.
If I get a chance to talk to Charles Sherrod, I'll let him tell you what he thinks, in his own words, here.
Okay, Joan, though I do confess to being somewhat puzzled by the first quote I stumbled upon, especially as it came relatively recently - a full year after America had installed its first black administration in the White House.
Charles Sherrod: "We must stop the white man and his Uncle Toms from stealing our elections."
Gee, Joan, can you tell me what's so heroic about telling a room full of young black minds not even out in the world, yet - that if they ever embrace political, or socio-economic ideas that don't jibe with your hero's, the one elevated in a room before them, that they will be denounced as race-traitors? That is what Uncle Tom means, after all. What REALLY is heroic in that? It looks to me like what your hero does is build up their black identity to an extreme, then sends them a message that, if they don't vote, or act the way he wants them to, he and his community make them outcasts, stripping that very identity from them as traitors to their race. Is that the message heroic Civil Rights leaders are passing on to young blacks today? It sounds like it to me, Joan.
Maybe it's your hero's racism there that keeps young blacks on the Democrat plantation year after after, generation after generation - and not some non-existent racism you imagine on the other side. Why is your hero poisoning young minds, Joan? Or, is that just too much for you to grasp?
Shouldn't young minds be taught to think and explore the world for themselves, and not be infected with such poison perhaps before they even know who they are? Or, are you cool with your hero, there, Joan? How are you going to rationalize, not my reaction to your hero, but the not so subtle message he is delivering to those young black people looking up to him in a room?
But then, and I must admit to this being extremely troubling for me, Joan - I learned from your hero, Charles Sherrod, that because you are a white liberal, I shouldn't actually be reading you. See, I thought that when white liberals like you in the mainstream media provided significant coverage to black candidates at election time, it was because you wanted to be fair, perhaps even wanting to help them out. I would have never guessed that you were actually engaged in a nation-wide conspiracy to invoke fear and hatred into your white readers so that, come election day, they'd be all riled up at the black candidate, turning out to beat him.
But that is precisely what your hero tells me you are up to, Joan. Here I thought you were only trying to be fair. But then, I guess, you are white.
Charles Sherrod: "The tears that we've shed, so many times.... When the TV and the newspaper comes out the day of an election, or the day before an election. And tell white folk, all over, wherever we are running somebody for an office ... that blacks are going to TAKE that office over. And thousands are coming to the polls. And you gotta get it."
Geez, Joan. I'm really kind of disappointed in you and your hero after all this. I'll just let him tell you himself. I'm going to move on down below and write on some interesting things I discovered about the Sherrods and their New Communities project. I mean, racism is one thing, ... but separatist black-Marxist liberation politics? Is that what this is? Wow, you sure does have some interesting heroes for a white gal, Joan. I'll give you that.
Here are some words for your blog from Charles Sherrod, Joan:
Given the length of this, already - I'm going to cut to the chase - mostly just giving you the facts. In the video below, Sherrod claims they couldn't get funding because they were a corporation. He says nothing about racism being involved - though he does again display some of his own. But that is the grounds they sued upon - racism. And his son offers two views of what New Communities actually is, or was - family farm, non-profit corp., black-Marxist commune? Take your pick.
Kenyatta Sherrod remembers when his family’s farm was in foreclosure in the early 1980s. It was huge -- 6,000 acres -- and several people lived on it, raising vegetables and livestock that they would share with each other. Though several people had a stake in it, the property was in the Sherrods' names. “They lost the farm,” Kenyatta Sherrod said. “Life was different after that. We didn’t have a lot after that.”
The Sherrods also have a daughter, one with a rather interesting name. Pretty cool naming your kid after the Berlin Wall coming down, right? Well, not quite, unfortunately.
Son Kenyatta and daughter Russia defended their mother from charges of racism which led to her resignation from the U.S. Department of Agriculture position as director of its Rural Development program in Georgia on Tuesday. Further research indicates she graduated high school in 1985. If she were 18 at the time, that would mean she was born in 1967. That's an interesting time for an American to name their child Russia - and it also happens to be the year Russia celebrated the 50th anniversary of the revolution. Hmm. But her actual birth year is unconfirmed, for now.
Russia Sherrod 1981-1985
But, is anyone else starting to get a Jeremiah Wright-like vibe here folks? I am. And if so, why would Obama appoint a racist black-Marxist to the USDA, fire her in kneejerk fashion, then grovel on the phone to her, offering her a promotion. By the way, she may just go fishing, instead.
The two joked afterward, Shirley said now that's she's unemployed she might have a little bit of time to do a little fishing a favorite hobby.
Mark Knoller mentioned a potential wrongful termination lawsuit in passing. And now the media and the administration seem intent on making her disappear. One theory on that I've heard is, they don't want people asking questions about her lawsuit. What I'm wondering is, maybe they don't want people asking questions about Obama.
He worshiped with Jeremiah Wright for years. He potentially appointed a racist black liberationist Marxist to the USDA. Just how many of them does he have around him, as he sits in the WH waging war on capitalism? And, finally, what might all those college documents of his they won't let us see tell us about him ... especially given this?
Ultimately, given all this now beginning to come out as a result of Andrew Breitbart's original work makes him a hero in my book. These are the tough questions the press doesn't even want to ask. It brings to the front important issues on race and racism, black, or otherwise, the press and the WH don't wish to confront. But that's what's suppose to happen in a genuinely free, open and democratic society.
As things stand, an extremely controversial woman is sitting there with a free ticket for a promotion at the USDA from an incompetent in the WH who created this mess by appointing her, then firing her too quickly for some reason. This isn't Breitbart's mess. This is now Obama's mess to clean up, or justify, as far as I'm concerned. Heckuva job, Barry. Heckuva job. At least we're starting to get used to it. I believe the word is: incompetent.
Obama really does seem to have some of the strangest friends, just like Joan Walsh, of Sherrod's white media conspiracy against blacks. Who'd a thunk it?
The Examiner piece referenced at end of video is here.
At the time, why would African leaders be so pleased that the UK released the Lockerbie bomber? Did our Afro-centric president, Barack Hussein Obama, criticize the recipients of so much US aid? Not that I can find.
Obama said he was ''surprised, disappointed and angry'. No doubt with great passion.
George Bush tripled direct humanitarian and development aid to Africa to nearly $9 billion. What did that buy us? It looks like it bought us African leaders cheering a mass murderer of Americans.
Why did our special cousins, the Brits, release Abdelbaset al-Megrahi?
Where is the outrage?
According to the Guardian, Barack Obama is under growing pressure to release a letter that reveals the US grudgingly supported freeing the Lockerbie bomber on compassionate grounds.
The letter was sent to Scottish ministers by a senior diplomat at the US embassy in London last August, eight days before Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was released from prison because he was dying from inoperable prostate cancer.
Obama's administration has refused to allow publication of the letter, in which the US says allowing Megrahi to live at home in Scotland would be "far preferable" to sending him back to Libya under the prisoner transfer deal brokered by former prime minister Tony Blair in 2007.
____________________________________
US 'preferred' compassionate release of Lockerbie bomber, says Alex Salmond The US Government told Scottish officials that the Lockerbie bomber's release on compassionate grounds was ''far preferable'' to his transfer back to a Libyan jail, it was revealed today.
Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond said today that while America ''didn't want'' Abdelbaset al-Megrahi to be released, they would rather see him freed on account of his terminal cancer, than under the prisoner transfer agreement between the UK and Libya.
Megrahi is the only person convicted of the 1988 bombing in which 270 people were killed.
He was released in August last year after doctors said he was dying of prostate cancer and had three months to live - prompting fury in the US.
Last week, President Barack Obama told a White House press conference that the US had been ''surprised, disappointed and angry'' about Megrahi being released.
Speaking to Sky News today, Mr Salmond said: ''I think a fair description of the American Government's position is that they didn't want al-Megrahi to be released.
''However, if he was to be released, they thought it was far preferable for compassionate release as opposed to the prisoner transfer agreement.''
He also said this opposition was probably because the so-called ''deal in the desert'', signed by ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair, which paved the way for the prisoner transfer agreement, was signed at the same time as an oil deal with Libya.
But the American Ambassador to the UK Louis Susman said the US had ''strongly objected'' to any type of release. He said the US was examining whether its correspondence over the issue could be released but refused to be drawn on the reported memo.
''What you saw in the (Sunday) Times was supposedly a leaked memo or letter which did not state the facts of the letter and we don't comment on correspondence between two governments until both governments agree to release it,'' he told BBC Radio 4's The World This Weekend.
He added: ''It is quite clear that the US government was strongly against the release of Megrahi. We had a mutual understanding with the British Government that if he was tried and convicted he would serve his entire sentence in Scotland.
''The fact that the justice minister made a decision on compassionate grounds to release him was something we were not in favour of.
''We obviously had conversations with them in which we strongly objected to any type of release.''
Calls for the decision to release Megrahi to be re-examined grew in volume in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico Oil spill, and reports that BP had lobbied for the bomber to be freed.
The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee announced plans for an inquiry into the bomber's release, but Scottish justice secretary Kenny MacAskill and former foreign secretary Jack Straw have both rejected calls to give evidence in person.
And Mr Salmond today repeated that the Scottish Government had no contact with BP in the build up to Megrahi's release on compassionate grounds.
Megrahi's release on compassionate grounds was on the basis of a medical report which indicated he had three months to live - but next month will mark a year since he was freed. Megrahi is still alive after being allowed to go home to Tripoli.
Mr Salmond today insisted that estimating life expectancy for terminal cancer sufferers is not an ''exact science''. He said the report compiled by Scottish Prison Service director of health Andrew Fraser was done in consultation with experts from the NHS in Scotland.
Ministers have published the report which concluded a three-month prognosis was reasonable.
Pakistan Spy Service Aids Insurgents, Reports Assert By MARK MAZZETTI, JANE PERLEZ, ERIC SCHMITT and ANDREW W. LEHREN Published: July 25, 2010 NY Times This article is by Mark Mazzetti, Jane Perlez, Eric Schmitt and Andrew W. Lehren.
Americans fighting the war in Afghanistan have long harbored strong suspicions that Pakistan’s military spy service has guided the Afghan insurgency with a hidden hand, even as Pakistan receives more than $1 billion a year from Washington for its help combating the militants, according to a trove of secret military field reports to be made public Sunday.
The documents, to be made available by an organization called WikiLeaks, suggest that Pakistan, an ostensible ally of the United States, allows representatives of its spy service to meet directly with the Taliban in secret strategy sessions to organize networks of militant groups that fight against American soldiers in Afghanistan, and even hatch plots to assassinate Afghan leaders.
Taken together, the reports indicate that American soldiers on the ground are inundated with accounts of a network of Pakistani assets and collaborators that runs from the Pakistani tribal belt along the Afghan border, through southern Afghanistan, and all the way to the capital, Kabul.
Much of the information — raw intelligence and threat assessments gathered from the field in Afghanistan— cannot be verified and likely comes from sources aligned with Afghan intelligence, which considers Pakistan an enemy, and paid informants. Some describe plots for attacks that do not appear to have taken place.
But many of the reports rely on sources that the military rated as reliable.
While current and former American officials interviewed could not corroborate individual reports, they said that the portrait of the spy agency’s collaboration with the Afghan insurgency was broadly consistent with other classified intelligence.
Some of the reports describe Pakistani intelligence working alongside Al Qaeda to plan attacks. Experts cautioned that although Pakistan’s militant groups and Al Qaeda work together, directly linking the Pakistani spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, with Al Qaeda is difficult.
The records also contain firsthand accounts of American anger at Pakistan’s unwillingness to confront insurgents who launched attacks near Pakistani border posts, moved openly by the truckload across the frontier, and retreated to Pakistani territory for safety.
The behind-the-scenes frustrations of soldiers on the ground and glimpses of what appear to be Pakistani skullduggery contrast sharply with the frequently rosy public pronouncements of Pakistan as an ally by American officials, looking to sustain a drone campaign over parts of Pakistani territory to strike at Qaeda havens. Administration officials also want to keep nuclear-armed Pakistan on their side to safeguard NATO supplies flowing on routes that cross Pakistan to Afghanistan.
This month, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, in one of the frequent visits by American officials to Islamabad, announced $500 million in assistance and called the United States and Pakistan “partners joined in common cause.”
The reports suggest, however, the Pakistani military has acted as both ally and enemy, as its spy agency runs what American officials have long suspected is a double game — appeasing certain American demands for cooperation while angling to exert influence in Afghanistan through many of the same insurgent networks that the Americans are fighting to eliminate.
Behind the scenes, both Bush and Obama administration officials as well as top American commanders have confronted top Pakistani military officers with accusations of ISI complicity in attacks in Afghanistan, and even presented top Pakistani officials with lists of ISI and military operatives believed to be working with militants.
Benjamin Rhodes, deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, said that Pakistan had been an important ally in the battle against militant groups, and that Pakistani soldiers and intelligence officials had worked alongside the United States to capture or kill Qaeda and Taliban leaders.
Still, he said that the “status quo is not acceptable,” and that the havens for militants in Pakistan “pose an intolerable threat” that Pakistan must do more to address.
“The Pakistani government — and Pakistan’s military and intelligence services — must continue their strategic shift against violent extremist groups within their borders,” he said. American military support to Pakistan would continue, he said.
Several Congressional officials said that despite repeated requests over the years for information about Pakistani support for militant groups, they usually receive vague and inconclusive briefings from the Pentagon and C.I.A.
Nonetheless, senior lawmakers say they have no doubt that Pakistan is aiding insurgent groups. “The burden of proof is on the government of Pakistan and the ISI to show they don’t have ongoing contacts,” said Senator Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat on the Armed Services Committee who visited Pakistan this month and said he and Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the committee chairman, confronted Pakistan’s prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, yet again over the allegations.
Such accusations are usually met with angry denials, particularly by the Pakistani military, which insists that the ISI severed its remaining ties to the groups years ago. An ISI spokesman in Islamabad said Sunday that the agency would have no comment until it saw the documents.
The man the United States has depended on for cooperation in fighting the militants and who holds most power in Pakistan, the head of the army, Gen. Parvez Ashfaq Kayani, ran the ISI from 2004 to 2007, a period from which many of the reports are drawn. American officials have frequently praised General Kayani for what they say are his efforts to purge the military of officers with ties to militants.
American officials have described Pakistan’s spy service as a rigidly hierarchical organization that has little tolerance for “rogue” activity. But Pakistani military officials give the spy service’s “S Wing” — which runs external operations against the Afghan government and India — broad autonomy, a buffer that allows top military officials deniability.
American officials have rarely uncovered definitive evidence of direct ISI involvement in a major attack. But in July 2008, the C.I.A.’s deputy director, Stephen R. Kappes, confronted Pakistani officials with evidence that the ISI helped plan the deadly suicide bombing of India’s Embassy in Kabul.
From the current trove, one report shows that Polish intelligence warned of a complex attack against the Indian Embassy a week before that bombing, though the attackers and their methods differed. The ISI was not named in the report warning of the attack. Read the Document »
Another, dated August 2008, identifies a colonel in the ISI plotting with a Taliban official to assassinate President Hamid Karzai. The report says there was no information about how or when this would be carried out. The account could not be verified.
General Linked to Militants
Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul ran the ISI from 1987 to 1989, a time when Pakistani spies and the C.I.A. joined forces to run guns and money to Afghan militias who were battling Soviet troops in Afghanistan. After the fighting stopped, he maintained his contacts with the former mujahedeen, who would eventually transform themselves into the Taliban.
And more than two decades later, it appears that General Gul is still at work. The documents indicate that he has worked tirelessly to reactivate his old networks, employing familiar allies like Jaluluddin Haqqani and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, whose networks of thousands of fighters are responsible for waves of violence in Afghanistan.
General Gul is mentioned so many times in the reports, if they are to be believed, that it seems unlikely that Pakistan’s current military and intelligence officials could not know of at least some of his wide-ranging activities.
For example, one intelligence report describes him meeting with a group of militants in Wana, the capital of South Waziristan, in January 2009. There, he met with three senior Afghan insurgent commanders and three “older” Arab men, presumably representatives of Al Qaeda, who the report suggests were important “because they had a large security contingent with them.” Read the Document »
The gathering was designed to hatch a plan to avenge the death of “Zamarai,” the nom de guerre of Osama al-Kini, who had been killed days earlier by a C.I.A. drone attack. Mr. Kini had directed Qaeda operations in Pakistan and had spearheaded some of the group’s most devastating attacks.
The plot hatched in Wana that day, according to the report, involved driving a dark blue Mazda truck rigged with explosives from South Waziristan to Afghanistan’s Paktika Province, a route well known to be used by the insurgents to move weapons, suicide bombers and fighters from Pakistan.
In a show of strength, the Taliban leaders approved a plan to send 50 Arab and 50 Waziri fighters to Ghazni Province in Afghanistan, the report said.
General Gul urged the Taliban commanders to focus their operations inside Afghanistan in exchange for Pakistan turning “a blind eye” to their presence in Pakistan’s tribal areas. It was unclear whether the attack was ever executed.
The United States has pushed the United Nations to put General Gul on a list of international terrorists, and top American officials said they believed he was an important link between active-duty Pakistani officers and militant groups.
General Gul, who says he is retired and lives on his pension, dismissed the allegations as “absolute nonsense,” by telephone from his home in Rawalpindi, where the Pakistani Army keeps its headquarters. “I have had no hand in it.” He added: “American intelligence is pulling cotton wool over your eyes.”
Senior Pakistani officials consistently deny that General Gul still works at the ISI’s behest, though several years ago, after mounting American complaints, Pakistan’s president at the time, Pervez Musharraf, was forced publicly to acknowledge the possibility that former ISI officials were assisting the Afghan insurgency.
Despite his denials, General Gul makes television appearances and keeps close ties to his former employers. When a reporter visited General Gul this spring for an interview at his home, the former spy master canceled the appointment. According to his son, he had to attend meetings at army headquarters.
Suicide Bomber Network
The reports also chronicle efforts by ISI officers to run the networks of suicide bombers that emerged as a sudden, terrible force in Afghanistan in 2006.
The detailed reports indicate that American officials had a relatively clear understanding of how the suicide networks presumably functioned, even if some of the threats did not materialize. It is impossible to know why the attacks never came off — either they were thwarted, the attackers shifted targets, or the reports were deliberately planted as Taliban disinformation.
One report, from Dec. 18, 2006, describes a cyclical process to develop the suicide bombers. First, the suicide attacker is recruited and trained in Pakistan. Then, reconnaissance and operational planning gets under way, including scouting to find a place for “hosting” the suicide bomber near the target before carrying out the attack. The network, it says, receives help from the Afghan police and the Ministry of Interior. Read the Document »
In many cases, the reports are complete with names and ages of bombers, as well as license plate numbers, but the Americans gathering the intelligence struggle to accurately portray many other details, introducing sometimes comical renderings of places and Taliban commanders.
In one case, a report rated by the American military as credible states that a gray Toyota Corolla had been loaded with explosives between the Afghan border and Landik Hotel, in Pakistan, apparently a mangled reference to Landi Kotal, in Pakistan’s tribal areas. The target of the plot, however, is a real hotel in downtown Kabul, the Ariana.
“It is likely that ISI may be involved as supporter of this attack,” reads a comment in the report.
Several of the reports describe current and former ISI operatives, including General Gul, visiting madrassas near the city of Peshawar, a gateway to the tribal areas, to recruit new fodder for suicide bombings.
One report, labeled a “real threat warning” because of its detail and the reliability of its source, described how commanders of Mr. Hekmatyar’s insurgent group, Hezb-i-Islami, ordered the delivery of a suicide bomber from the Hashimiye madrassa, run by Afghans. Read the Document »
The boy was to be used in an attack on American or NATO vehicles in Kabul during the Muslim Festival of Sacrifices that opened Dec. 31, 2006. According to the report, the boy was taken to the Afghan city of Jalalabad to buy a car for the bombing, and was later brought to Kabul. It was unclear whether the attack took place.
The documents indicate that the these types of activities continued throughout last year. From July to October 2009, nine threat reports detailed movements by Taliban suicide bombers from Pakistan into populated areas of Afghanistan, including Kandahar, Kunduz and Kabul.
Some of the bombers were sent to disrupt Afghanistan’s presidential elections, held last August. In other instances, American intelligence learned that the Haqqani network sent bombers at the ISI’s behest to strike Indian officials, development workers and engineers in Afghanistan. Other plots were aimed at the Afghan government.
Sometimes the intelligence documents twin seemingly credible detail with plots that seem fantastical or utterly implausible assertions. For instance, one report describes an ISI plan to use a remote-controlled bomb disguised as a golden Koran to assassinate Afghan government officials. Another report documents an alleged plot by the ISI and Taliban to ship poisoned alcoholic beverages to Afghanistan to kill American troops.
But the reports also charge that the ISI directly helped organize Taliban offensives at key junctures of the war. On June 19, 2006, ISI operatives allegedly met with the Taliban leaders in Quetta, the city in southern Pakistan where American and other Western officials have long believed top Taliban leaders have been given refuge by the Pakistani authorities.
At the meeting, according to the report, they pressed the Taliban to mount attacks on Maruf, a district of Kandahar that lies along the Pakistani border.
The planned offensive would be carried out primarily by Arabs and Pakistanis, the report said, and a Taliban commander, “Akhtar Mansoor,” warned that the men should be prepared for heavy losses. “The foreigners agreed to this operation and have assembled 20 4x4 trucks to carry the fighters into areas in question,” it said.
While the specifics about the foreign fighters and the ISI are difficult to verify, the Taliban did indeed mount an offensive to seize control in Maruf in 2006.
Afghan government officials and Taliban fighters have widely acknowledged that the offensive was led by the Taliban commander Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, who was then the Taliban shadow governor of Kandahar.
Mullah Mansour tried to claw out a base for himself inside Afghanistan, but just as the report quotes him predicting, the Taliban suffered heavy losses and eventually pulled back.
Another report goes on to describe detailed plans for a large-scale assault, timed for September 2007, aimed at the American forward operating base in Managi, in Kunar Province.
“It will be a five-pronged attack consisting of 83-millimeter artillery, rockets, foot soldiers, and multiple suicide bombers,” it says.
It is not clear that the attack ever came off, but its planning foreshadowed another, seminal attack that came months later, in July 2008.
At that time, about 200 Taliban insurgents nearly overran an American base in Wanat, in Nuristan, killing nine American soldiers. For the Americans, it was one of the highest single-day tolls of the war.
Tensions With Pakistan
The flood of reports of Pakistani complicity in the insurgency has at times led to barely disguised tensions between American and Pakistani officers on the ground.
Meetings at border outposts set up to develop common strategies to seal the frontier and disrupt Taliban movements reveal deep distrust among the Americans of their Pakistani counterparts.
On Feb. 7, 2007, American officers met with Pakistani troops on a dry riverbed to discuss the borderlands surrounding Afghanistan’s Khost Province.
According to notes from the meeting, the Pakistanis portrayed their soldiers as conducting around-the-clock patrols. Asked if he expected a violent spring, a man identified in the report as Lt. Col. Bilal, the Pakistani officer in charge, said no. His troops were in firm control.
The Americans were incredulous. Their record noted that there had been a 300 percent increase in militant activity in Khost before the meeting.
“This comment alone shows how disconnected this particular group of leadership is from what is going on in reality,” the notes said.
The Pakistanis told the Americans to contact them if they spotted insurgent activity along the border. “I doubt this would do any good,” the American author of the report wrote, “because PAKMIL/ISI is likely involved with the border crossings.” “PAKMIL” refers to the Pakistani military.
A year earlier, the Americans became so frustrated at the increase in roadside bombs in Afghanistan that they hand-delivered folders with names, locations, aerial photographs and map coordinates to help the Pakistani military hunt down the militants the Americans believed were responsible.
Nothing happened, wrote Col. Barry Shapiro, an American military liaison officer with experience in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, after an Oct. 13, 2006, meeting.
“Despite the number of reports and information detailing the concerns,” Colonel Shapiro wrote, “we continue to see no change in the cross-border activity and continue to see little to no initiative along the PAK border” by Pakistan troops. The Pakistani Army “will only react when asked to do so by U.S. forces,” he concluded.
We did not come together to pass one single piece of legislation. We are fighting for nothing less than a new foundation for our country -- and that work is not complete."
-Barack Hussein Obama
The current record deficit is the $1.41 trillion deficit for 2009.
White House predicts record $1.47 trillion deficit for 2010. The government is borrowing 41 cents of every dollar it spends.
Next year's predicted amount is $1.42 trillion worth of red ink — that's 37 cents of borrowing for every dollar spent — is looking worse. It's about $150 billion more than previously predicted, because of still-slumping tax revenues.
The unemployment rate, presently averaging 9.5 percent, would average 9 percent next year under the new estimates.
Federal deficits are 10% of GNP, Anything above 3% is considered unsustainable.
Let me repeat; Obama's work is not complete:
We did not come together to pass one single piece of legislation. We are fighting for nothing less than a new foundation for our country -- and that work is not complete."
It is inexplicable that Obama attacks Arizona in a federal court for trying to do what Obama is sworn by oath to do, and that is border protection.
Obama, like his predecessor GWB, is conducting two wars in Asia. While this is ongoing, a border state of the United States, Mexico, is losing a war with Mexican drug gangs. The war is at our borders and has breeched them.
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Mexican authorities find 38 bodies hidden in mass graves From Esprit Smith, CNN July 24, 2010
State attorney general: Some bodies dumped within the past 15 days
Investigators are searching the area for graves
State media says investigators found charred remains in the area
Authorities have linked other similar grave sites to Mexico's drug war
(CNN) -- Authorities in the Mexican border state of Nuevo Leon are investigating after finding at least 38 bodies in nine hidden mass graves, the state's attorney general said.
Investigators believe some of the bodies had been dumped within the past 15 days, said Alejandro Garza y Garza, Nuevo Leon attorney general.
State-run news agency Notimex reported that investigators found charred remains, incinerated bone fragments and stains of fire on the ground where bodies were presumably burned in steel drums.
Garza said Friday that the bodies were in an area spanning 3 hectares (about 7 acres) in the municipality of Juarez outside the state capital of Monterrey. Investigators were still searching for additional graves Friday, he said, according to Notimex.
The bodies were mostly males between ages 20 and 50, Notimex said, and many of them had tattoos. Forensic investigators are performing DNA tests to identify the victims, Notimex reported. Similar graves sites have been discovered in the Mexican states of Tamaulipas, Guerrero and Quintana Roo since late May. Authorities have linked them to Mexico's ongoing drug war.
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Meanwhile our trillion dollar investment in Iraq democracy is going well:
Top Insurgents Escaped Prison Days After Iraq Took Over NY Times
BAGHDAD — An outsize ceremonial skeleton key traded hands last week in the official transfer of Camp Cropper, the last jail in Iraq that had been under American control. The Iraqi government was, one American general said, “equipped, prepared and poised to take over.”
But it did not end the dark history of prisons in Iraq over the last seven years: Just five days later, four prisoners, at least three of them said to be high-ranking members in the nation’s most violent insurgent group, escaped. The warden and several guards are nowhere to be found.
“Leaders from the Islamic State of Iraq were able to escape from Cropper Prison,” read a statement that appeared Friday on a Web site that carries messages from the group, which is affiliated with Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. “And no one from the apostates has been able to find them, 36 hours after their escape.”
Sunni extremists sometimes use the term “apostates” to describe the majority Shiites, who control Iraq’s government.
The July 15 transfer of Camp Cropper, which had held many of what the United States military considered “high value” inmates, was considered yet another milestone toward full Iraqi sovereignty, just over a month before America is scheduled to withdraw the last of its combat troops.
But institutions are being handed over to a political system in disarray. There is no new government nearly five months after parliamentary elections.
And while overall violence is relatively low, a deadly campaign of assassinations is under way against political figures, members of Awakening groups and people who had cooperated with Americans. The group to which the escaped prisoners belonged, the Islamic State of Iraq, claimed responsibility for one of the worst of these recent attacks: On Sunday, bombings killed at least 47 members of Awakening Councils, made up of former Sunni insurgents who switched sides.
The men escaped from the Camp Cropper prison complex, near Baghdad International Airport, on Tuesday, though Iraqi officials did not make the news public for 48 hours. The missing men include the group’s finance minister, its interior minister and its justice minister, the security officials said, without identifying them. The standing of a fourth escapee was unclear.
The men had been captured by American forces and had been held for about 15 months, the Iraqi police said Friday. On Friday, the United States military in Iraq declined to answer questions on the escape from the prison, where 1,500 inmates are held. In Washington, Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said: “U.S. forces are not involved in any aspect of running or securing the facility. The government of Iraq is investigating the circumstances surrounding the escape.” It is not known how the four men escaped the highly secured prison, but Iraq’s minister of justice, Dara Nurredin Dara, said Friday that the jail’s American-assigned warden, Omar Hamis Hamadi, was missing as well.
“We were told that he was trustworthy and had a good reputation,” Mr. Dara said.
Other security officials said that several guards had failed to report to work since the escape.
The prison system in Iraq has been consistently troubled since the United States military invaded Iraq in 2003. Seeking to tame an increasingly effective insurgency, American soldiers arrested thousands of suspects, many of them without proof, and held them for a year or longer.
The system began to change after the scandal at the Abu Ghraib prison, in which American jailers tortured and abused detainees. Experts say that many men became radicalized against Americans inside the prisons.
Experts also say that, as prisoners have been released and transferred to Iraqi authority, the system remains abusive. In April, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki ordered the closing of a secret prison that held hundreds of detainees from northern Iraq. Dozens of prisoners had been tortured before the country’s human rights minister and the United States intervened.
High-level suspects have disappeared from Iraqi detention with maddening frequency. On Friday, the British Embassy in Baghdad said the British foreign secretary had raised concerns with Iraq’s foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, about the recent disappearance of the man convicted in the 2004 kidnapping and murder of a British-Iraqi aid worker, Margaret Hassan. The man, Ali Lutfi Jassar al-Rawi, was in custody and appealing his conviction when he disappeared.
At Camp Cropper, the American military continues to operate one of the prison’s blocks at the request of the Iraqi government, overseeing about 200 inmates, including members of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a homegrown Sunni group, and officials who had been part of Saddam Hussein’s government. The Iraqi government asked the Americans to hold on to some of the prisoners while Iraqi law enforcement officials determine their legal status. The men escaped from the Iraqi-controlled part of the prison.
In recent months, American and Iraqi security forces have captured and killed dozens of members of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, including its top leaders. American generals, however, caution that while the organization has been significantly weakened, it continues to be capable of launching attacks that lead to mass casualties.
Duraid Adnan and Zaid Thaker contributed reporting from Baghdad, and Elisabeth Bumiller from Washington.
